Song of the Schism: Book One, Chapter One
by Timelady Jen
Summary: The first spin-off of the Pete's World Series. On Alternate Gallifrey, crucial infrastructure was never built. The Doctor and the surviving Time Lords are scrambling to establish a foothold. By request of the Doctor, Aislynn and her companions must make a dangerous journey to rebuild the Schism, before the next generation of Time Lords is lost forever.
1. Chapter 1

Center  
Song of the Schism  
Part One: Return to Gallifrey

Chapter One  
Back in Touch

Aislynn tapped her stylus thoughtfully against her teeth as she frowned at the figures displayed on the screen. The screen was normally two-dimensional; but today she had several layers of screens stacked on top of each other, rather like a deck of cards.

Her study was a roundish and, at the moment, a rather disheveled room. Like so many of the rooms in the Elysium, it was earth-toned, with plants in pots here and there. It had a round couch and soft carpeted floors, and, at the moment, its main feature was the large holographic screen being displayed in the middle of the air.

The Elysium, where she lived, was an eclectic mix of themes, but the sorts of architecture that might have been found in 1960's London featured prominently. The couch was recessed into the floor, the light fixtures were the height of Mod, and there were several round "egg" style chairs. It smelled delightfully of delicate Jasmine and Vanilla, for Aislynn had a cone of incense burning in a wall sconce dedicated to the purpose: but today she hardly felt soothed.

"Aislynn!"

She looked up, realizing that this was not the first time had been called, and saw Taydin in the doorway. He was tall and proportionately muscled, graceful instead of being bulky: his dark hair always looked a bit tousled, no matter how he tried to comb it to behave; and his eyes were dark and quiet, as if better suited to reading than to the outdoors. He wore a cotton shirt, soft blue jeans, and loafers.

Aislynn was wearing one of the sensible silverish jumpsuits so common on 51st century Earth. She had hair the color of fine wine, which at the moment was getting in her eyes, and she pushed it back impatiently, pushing her reading glasses to the top of her head, and regarding him with leaf-green eyes.

"I didn't realize it had gotten so late," she said, as her Time Lord senses caught up to the current moment and told her exactly how late it really was. "I wasn't paying attention." She came to him and kissed him gently.

He lingered over the kiss a little, as he always did, as he always had, since Azari Bal.

"I see so," he teased gently. "Have you come up for air at all today? Have you eaten? Had tea? Anything?"

"I meant to," she confessed as her stomach growled.

"You don't eat if I am not here," he scowled at her.

"I do!" she protested, but not very strongly. Abashed, she went to the replicator in the next room, and a few minutes later had returned with hot plates for them both.

By the time that she had returned, Taydin had expanded her deck-of-cards configuration, and had screens all over the room.

Aislynn was surprised. "I didn't realize I had stacked them that deep," she said, looking at just how many screens she had filled with her earlier computations.

"The schism?" he turned to her in some surprise, indicating the screen he had been studying. By now he had his own reading glasses on.

"You know you look especially fetching when you wear those," she teased him.

"Stop it," he teased back, but looked pleased as he took his own plate and moved to the table. "You've been working on the Schism?" he repeated.

"I did most of the work earlier," she said, sitting down across from him.

"You mean on Azari Bal," he said and she looked at her plate.

"Yes," she said, and took a bite almost defensively.

"You don't have to talk about it before you're ready," he said gently. Aislynn felt a sudden surge of gratitude to him.

"He died," she said after a brief silence, "That boy. Davian. Ultimately, he died because he couldn't regenerate. He couldn't regenerate because he hadn't been exposed to the Schism," she gestured at the mathematical notation on the scattered screens.

Taydin ate in silence for a while.

"And you were trying to find a way around the fact that it takes more than two Singers in order to create it?"

She nodded. "And having no success whatever, I might add."

"I was afraid of that. Setting aside everything else, I don't know how only two Singers would be able to recreate the Schism. The Doctor has some of the tools, I believe, but even that won't get us past the maths," he agreed.

"I know," she said sadly.

They ate in silence for a while.

"Does that mean that you're ready for the big day tomorrow?"

"My bags are all packed," she smiled at him.

"Good, because otherwise I would think you didn't want to move in with us," he teased, then relented, and put one of his hands over hers. "It will be all right." he soothed.

Aislynn sighed. "I am sure Susan will appreciate the end of the slumber party," she said, "And I did enjoy spending a couple of extra days on Apalapucia, just the two of us."

"But now you're faced with the prospect of parking the Elysium on Gallifrey and moving into an actual house, with a new husband and two newly-adopted children whom you barely know and whom you are afraid you won't love properly. It'll be your first full-time day on the job as Mum, and you're petrified of bollixing the whole thing. Plus, the last time you were on Gallifrey it was during the War, where your superiors betrayed you, and the people who took advantage of the nanite programming abused you, and you haven't set foot on the planet since. Does that about work the sums?"

"You're too discerning by half," said Aislynn, and pushed away her plate.

"It's going to be all right," Taydin soothed, for what was easily the thousandth time. "You'll make a brilliant Mum."

"I don't bake," she pointed out ruefully. "Susan's very gifted in the kitchen. Freeya will be in cookies up to her ears."

"Not all mums bake," he laughed. "I know you are worried, but just treat them like you did on Apalapucia, and everything will be fine. In the meantime," his eyes sparkled at her, "How long has it been since we have danced?"

Her vague, unformed fears still lurked at the back of her mind; but she felt a glowing pleasure at the suggestion. "It's been all day."

He stood and extended his arm to her, and she took it. He had found her a new piece of music, as he so often did; and they spent the entire evening doing nothing but waltzing and talking, enjoying each other's company.

Gallifrey

One Day Later

"A bit further… a bit further…" prompted Taydin.

He hadn't let Aislynn turn on the scanners when the Elysium had landed: he had just insisted she close her eyes. He was leading her step-by-step, standing just behind her, with his hands over her eyes.

"Can I look yet?" she prompted.

"No, not yet, a few more steps," he teased, and led her into the brilliant sunshine. "All right," he prompted when they had gone far enough, "Now."

The Elysium hadn't materialized in Taydin's house; instead it had been parked in a plaza on top of a hill. It was a beautiful day, and the Panopticon was in its full splendor, the sun glittering off of its windows. The Central Plaza was full of wanderers and shoppers of every description. A variety of races were represented, from the humans to the Tpydgs. In the background were rolling hills, and on top of them were windmills, their bright colorful sails spinning slowly in the wind. The trees were were in full splendor, their silvery leaves reflecting the sunlight, so that they seemed to glitter. It was cool and fresh, and the sky was filled with bright and fluffy clouds.

Aislynn caught her breath. She hadn't seen Gallifrey since the War, hadn't known what to expect, and truthfully had been leery of seeing it. Even without the influence of the Nanites, her experiences had left her feeling very shy. Taydin had showed her pictures, but it wasn't like seeing the real thing, in person.

"Oh, Taydin," she breathed. "It's beautiful."

She looked at his face and saw that his eyes were sparkling. The keen pleasure in his face made her regret staying away for so long. She had resisted coming here; perhaps that had been a mistake. "Show a girl around?" she prompted.

"With pleasure." He took her arm and they walked together down the sidewalk.

Aislynn was deeply grateful to Taydin for sticking so close. The Time Lords who had betrayed her had not survived the War, and she knew it better than anyone; but it was not to be denied that, even though it was so lovely, she was nervous and horribly vulnerable, testing waters where she had been badly bitten earlier.

"What would you like to see first?" He prompted.

She thought the matter over carefully.

"The Central Plaza, I think," she said slowly.

The Plaza was in the center of the burgeoning city. It was just in front of the Panopticon, a large open space, tiled in patterns and with swirling colours running across every surface. Curving walkways branched out from it in every direction; shops lined the edges of the Plaza as well as restaurants.

"The Quonset Huts were here originally, but they were shifted a few years back to the west side of town," Taydin told her. "To make room for festivals to take place here."

They spent some time just looking around. They spent pleasant time looking at the Library where Taydin worked as the librarian; visited a restaurant and a couple of stores; and toured the windmills and some of the areas under construction. In a few hours, she had visibly thawed towards the planet and its inhabitants. She felt more relaxed and at home than she had previously, and it showed in the set of her shoulders and the frequency of her smile.

"Still one more thing left to see," Taydin said that afternoon, after a very pleasant morning.

"The house, is it?"

"Be it ever so humble," he smiled at her. "Come on."

They returned to the Elysium and Aislynn looked mortified. "Oh, I didn't even notice!"

The Elysium waited for them on top of the hill. It had taken its favorite shape of a floating spherical ball, in which it had undoubtedly materialized, but Aislynn hadn't even given it a glance once she had caught a sight of Gallifrey. The plaza where they had landed had sidewalks that were decorated in more of the colored tiles, wavy lines and circles in blues, reds, greens, and gold, and this was the texture that the Elysium had selected, so that the floating ball was bumpy with brightly colored patterns floating across it.

"She does seem to prefer that shape," Taydin said bemusedly. "I've got to get around to tracking down the fault. Not today, though." He took out his key.

A portion of the previously-perfect surface of the Elysium slid open, revealing a door. The piece then rotated downwards to become a ramp, and Taydin took Aislynn's hand, and led her inside. The first room in the Elysium was the airlock. It was plain white and had no corners, as if a rounded cylinder had been set on its side. There they waited to be allowed inside.

"Do you want to get rid of it?" Taydin asked her, as it cycled.

"The airlock?" She was surprised. The question hadn't even occurred to her.

"Do we really need this sort of extreme protection now that you are cured?" he pointed out. "Now that you are no longer Infected?"

"I hadn't thought of it," she admitted.

His hand went to hers again. "Still not used to it, are you? Being cured?"

"No," she confessed truthfully over, leaning into him. "I was Infected for so long… when I wake up in the mornings, I often don't remember for several minutes. Usually not until I see your face."

He stroked her hair gently.

"It'll come," he assured her. "You'll get used to it."

"It seems impossible. But then again, I had given up hope of a cure," she admitted, and the door opened into the console room.

The Elysium had been decorated in a tasteful, yet eclectic, mix of styles. Different rooms were decorated in different themes: stone in one, adobe in a second, metal mesh in a third, and so on. The rooms and corridors often featured plants of all kinds, nearly all of them installed before the War. There were interesting cubbyholes and wall sconces; around every corner peeked hopeful fronds and leaves. There was even a certain amount of wildlife, though this was limited mostly to flutterbyes, and a few small songbirds.

However, there were no plants in the console room. The main feature of the room was the console itself, with smooth, jewel-like buttons. Over the center of the console were golden, formless, floating blobs, giving the entire thing the appearance of a lava lamp. The "Sixties Mod" feeling of the room was increased by a couple of "half egg" chairs. The room, as so many of the rooms in the Elysium, was round, without corners, and a few inches away from one curved wall floated four small round spheres, the size of golf balls.

"Shall we, then?" said Taydin. Aislynn's hands moved over the controls, setting the craft in motion. It wasn't a long flight; just from the plaza to Taydin's home. In a moment they had materialized again.

After they had landed, she stood at the controls for a long moment, thinking.

"What is it?" Taydin said.

"I believe it is time to put up the screens," she said softly, and moved to touch the requisite buttons.

All over the ship, screens rose up over the plants. The type of screen varied from point to point; in some places they were mesh, in others wooden slats, in yet others frosted or colored opaque panes. With the screens up, the Elysium looked much less like an arboretum, and much more like a ship. Aislynn normally tended her plants herself, by hand; but now she was going to be away. Behind their screens, the plants would be tended automatically, receiving the proper amounts of water and light, and growing just as contentedly as before. Aislynn, in the meantime, would be busy with a new home.

"A momentous occasion," teased Taydin, knowing what it meant to put the plants away for a time. "Are you ready for this?"

"Yes, I think so," she smiled back. He picked up her valise and took her hand, and she followed him into her new home.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Surprise

...

Gallifrey

Taydin's Home

...

Aislynn was absolutely certain that such a distinguished personage as Scout Commander Taydin, decorated hero of the Time War, and recipient of enough medals to fill an entire wall, should have been allocated a much larger mansion than the simple house he had actually selected.

It was a single dome, a standard unit for a fellow without a family. It was going to be very small for a new family of four, but there was a two year waiting list for the family-sized homes. It was modest and neat, with a couple of cosy book nooks and a small neat kitchen; at the same time, though, it was warm and inviting. The carpeting was thick and it seemed as if books, made of genuine paper, were crammed in every possible nook and corner. With them were a variety of odds and ends: there was a starship in a bottle, several small paintings, and a clockwork clock that made a delightful ticking noise. There were interesting things to look it in every direction, from dozens of worlds and time periods. She was surprised when she stepped inside: she had had no idea he collected such oddities.

"It's lovely," Aislynn smiled at him. "It's a little small," she continued, "But we can put ourselves on the waiting list for a family-sized unit, and Bel and Hadrian can share a room until it comes through. I know Bel wanted her own room but it can't be helped," she mused, and then added, "Oh! You've a music section!"

"Or," he pointed out, "We could just expand this one. It's not like the place can't be reconfigured."

"I hadn't realized that they were that advanced," Aislynn admitted, before spotting the controls discretely hidden behind a decorative screen.

The space wasn't large enough for a piano, but a portion of the living room had been dedicated to music. There was sheet music and a stand, and a violin case. He smiled at her. "I've always like antiquities… you could take it up again, you know."

"Take what up again?"

"Whatever instrument you used to play." It wasn't a question.

"Oh, I stopped playing once I entered Academy," mused Aislynn, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. She looked at Taydin, surprised, and he went to answer it.

She was even more surprised to see that an entire group of people were standing outside. A moment later Taydin stepped aside for the Doctor, Rose, Susan, Koschei, Guinn, Owen, Katie, Jake, and Diana.

The Doctor was tall and skinny, with brown tousled hair, a blue pinstriped suit, and red trainers. His wife, Rose, was shorter and blonde, wearing jeans, a "Union Jack" T-shirt, and a big grin. Susan was a tiny ginger, curvy, with warm brown eyes.

Koschei and Guinn were a study in contrasts. Guinn was tall, dark-haired, and rather lanky, and tended to wear tailored shirts and slacks, while Koschei was shorter, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, had a somewhat stockier build than Guinn, and dressed in T-shirts and jeans.

Owen and Katie Harper were human, a pair of married doctors. Owen was about the same height as Koschei, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a wide mouth, which at the moment was turned up in a smile. His wife Katie was shorter with long, straight blonde hair and a sweet, gentle nature.

The last couple, Diana and Jake, came in wearing their Torchwood fatigues. Jake was blond and well-muscled; Diana was short and dark-haired; her eyes were an attractive bluish color, so pale as to be almost pearly, that showed very gentle traces of faintly whitish-blue luminescence. Diana's appearance was unusual for her; the last time Aislynn had seen her, her eyes had glowed with a much brighter yellowish-green color, and her skin had been a very distinct, and rather sickly-looking, green.

Aislynn knew and liked everyone present: but she hadn't anticipated seeing all of them, especially not all at once.

"This is quite a crowd," she teased, and Diana broke away to come to her at once.

"Lady A!" she beamed, and twirled in a circle. "Look how normal I look! Susan says it is because of the Song thing on Azari Bal!"

"As usual, she is quite correct," Beamed Aislynn. "Let me look at you, my dear," she said, and Diana obligingly gave her another twirl. "You look lovely," she added approvingly. "To what do I owe the honour of…" but she trailed off as she caught the expression on Taydin's face. "Taydin! What are you up to?"

"Don't look at me," he said although it wasn't to be denied that he looked mischievous enough for two men at that moment. "Diana was the impetus."

"Diana?"

"True," beamed Diana. "We've got something to show you."

"All of you?" said Aislynn in surprise.

"All of us," confirmed Susan, coming forwards and giving her a hug also.

"We thought it might be hard for you to come back home, after everything that has happened," added Guinn.

Aislynn opened her mouth to protest this; but then closed it again. It was shocking, she mused to herself briefly, how much the relationship between herself and Guinn had changed since Azari Bal. They had survived Azari Bal together, and that had given them a sort of bond, like soldiers who had both been through a war. She had been very nervous indeed about returning to Gallifrey, and she had underestimated Guinn; he would have had to be an idiot not to perceive that.

"A bit," she said truthfully. "But the planet seems to be as pleasant as I had been told," it was hard to admit her own fears, but equally important that they understand that she was not maligning their noble goals. This world had been all they had thought of for years now, and she knew each one of them was working themselves all but to death to get it started; it would be beyond ungrateful to insult them.

"Pleasant, old girl?" repeated the Doctor. "It's home, I hope, or will be before long. And, we have something we want to show you! You'll like this!" He beamed, bouncing up and down on his trainers in his best "dotty professor" act.

Rose nudged him in the ribs.

"Don't spoil it!" She teased him.

"Never, not at all, wouldn't spoil it for the world!" The Doctor said. "Come along now, things to be, places to meet, people to go!" Rose and Diana both giggled at this.

"Lead on then," Aislynn said, amused, and the group headed for the door.

...

Gallifrey

Château

...

"This is the second time today we've done this," teased Aislynn as she walked forwards, step-by-step. Taydin had his hands over her eyes.

"When something works, why fix it?" he teased back. "Now, step up… another step up… another step up…" He led her around for a bit before prompting, "Ready to open your eyes?" She could almost sense a sort of nervous hush in the place where she had been taken.

"Ready," she said, and he removed his hands.

"All right… open them."

Aislynn opened her eyes. Her hands flew to her mouth.

She was standing in the doorway of a house, a much larger house than Taydin's. It had been beautifully constructed, with elegant, sweeping curves and alcoves in the walls. The house was full of what looked like an enormous crowd of people; men, women, and children looked back up at her. For the briefest of moments she was just staring at them; and then everything was in motion as a cheer went up, and she was swept forwards into the crowd.

There were scores of Mashas; Diana, herself a Masha clone, must have invited every one of her sisters, all dark-haired, and all looking much healthier. The sickly greenish tones had largely faded from their skin, and the glow of their eyes was much milder; every Masha present had those pale, silvery eyes now. With them they had sweethearts and lovers; members of UNIT and Torchwood, many of whom must have come straight from work, to judge by the number of uniforms and fatigues scattered in the crowd.

But that wasn't all.

Farian was there, with his wife, son, and daughter. K'anpo was there with his wife Alli and their five adopted children. All of the War Orphans were present, from brave Freeya to shy Justin, and even Jenny and Jamie, in tow of an old man and a redheaded human woman whom Aislynn didn't know. There were humans and Time Lords and smiling faces in every direction.

The room was decorated, but temporarily so. Both human and Time Lord hands had clearly helped with it. There were balloons and streamers, but also micro-projectors displaying favored Time Lord decorative shapes of intricate circles. There was a table set up with party favors and treats including cakes, cookies, and a bowl of punch; on the wall was a banner that read, "Welcome home."

Aislynn was unexpectedly the centre of attention, and was surrounded at once, with humans and Time Lords, all of them eager to meet her, to bow, or shake her hand.

She recognized most of the Time Lords present. There was Alli, along with the three other Time Lords, whom she had smuggled from the doomed world of Thon, moments before the Daleks had begun their orbital bombardment. There was Alistarinia and another four Time Lords, all of whom were fortunate to be alive; it was through sheer luck that they had escaped the gravity well of the black hole that had resulted when the Daleks had collapsed the nearby star of Celadon. She had spent half the war smuggling Time Lords out of harm's way; and now they were here, freed from their stasis tubes, smiling at her.

Even that wasn't all. They had brought along their wives and children, husbands and sons, brothers, sisters, and parents; the families that had been reunited by their return.

Aislynn was overwhelmed. Alli introduced her husband K'anpo and their five smiling children; Farian bowed deeply in gratitude for the return of his wife, son, and daughter; a child of about six gave her a picture, drawn with crayons, of a smiling happy family standing in front of a domed house; another child gave her a necklace of plastic beads; she was introduced to the surviving members of her own House, House Dromenia, always previously considered a tiny house, but now, because of her war efforts, making up a staggering ten percent of the surviving Time Lords. No less than four handsome young men invited her and Taydin to their upcoming weddings, each of them hand-in-hand with whichever Masha had captured their hearts. It was a whirl of meeting and greeting.

Once everyone had had a chance to chat for a while, the Doctor raised his sonic and gave several loud pulses from it. The background noise in the room died down, and everyone gave him their undivided attention.

"We all know why we are here," he told them all, grinning broadly. "Lady Aislynn has done something for everyone in this room, and we all wanted to thank her for it." He turned to Aislynn. "My dear Lady Aislynn, you may not know it, but this residence stands on the ancestral grounds of your line. It's not a replica of the original Line House, because we could find no surviving records from which to recreate it and I am sorry for that," he explained, looking briefly solemn. "Even so, as Head of your Line, you deserve a residence that can contain it. So, welcome home."

Her eyes were suddenly overbright.

"Thank you," she managed to say. "Thank you everyone."

It wasn't much of a speech, but everyone clapped; and the Doctor obviously understood all of the words that had gotten stuck under the lump in her throat, because he nodded at her.

Aislynn spent the rest of the evening shaking hands and greeting people and talking. She didn't have the chance to speak to Taydin until the end of the night, when most of the guests had returned to their homes at last.

"Did you do all of this?" Aislynn finally managed to gasp at him and the Doctor.

"Not all of it," said the Doctor, looking rather smug.

"It was Diana who got the ball rolling," added Taydin, his thumb tracing circles on her hand as he held it.

"Oh? How so?"

"Somehow she found out that Taydin's house was rather small. I tried to explain about how they can be shifted, but she wasn't at all satisfied with that," The Doctor chuckled. "I haven't had such an earful since I first met Rose," he winked at his wife.

"Oi!" She called to him in return as she came over. "You should have heard her. It was Lady-A this and Lady-A that, if it wasn't for Lady-A none of us would be here, and Lady-A needs someplace where she can have everything nice, a garden too and the lot Taydin's house is on, is just not big enough, Taydin says he is willing to move and only the best for Lady A… "

Aislynn, familiar with Diana's temperament, could easily envision how that conversation must have gone, and closed her eyes.

"Oh, dear. I apologize on her behalf."

"That wasn't the worst of it," the Doctor said, and although his face was suitably grim, he was having trouble hiding the twinkle in his eyes or the smile trying hard to pull at the corners of his mouth. "Diana babysits Jenny, off and on. I didn't know, until this came up, that apparently this babysitting has included tales of derring-do, as it were."

"Once Jenny was involved, we were basically doomed," Rose admitted.

The Doctor looked at Aislynn with a solemn expression.

"There was also quite a bit about how we do not dissolve Lady-A's House out from under her feet without even talking to her," he added.

Aislynn was very surprised.

"I didn't think Diana knew the first thing about the Lines and the Houses!"

"She doesn't," said the Doctor. "She just knew you were upset about it."

There was a silence as the Time Lord and Time Lady looked at each other.

"Are you going to dissolve them, then?" she prompted. Her voice was polite but the set of her head was ready for a fight, and her eyes were intense. It was an important question.

"I was never actually planning on dissolving them completely. People are far too attached to these things and they lost everything in the War; I can't take that away from them as well," The Doctor responded. "The thing is, that it can't be how we run things anymore! Having a Line Head who decides everything for the rest of the Line is ridiculous! It gets us into the habit of obeying whatever authority comes along and causes the sort of class thinking that leads to people thinking that Guinn and Koschei aren't good enough for Susan! I won't let us recreate all the worst aspects of our society and let people like Frees swan about the place, acting like he's the superior life-form around here," the Doctor argued, pacing back and forth across the hardwood floor, his hands flung out and his face thunderous.

"But we've got to do something quick," muttered Rose, looking very annoyed. "Frees and the other troublemakers are trying to push forward their own agenda."

Aislynn shook her head and turned on her tablet.

"Look, you do it this way; you set up a House of Commons for the immigrants and a House of Nobles for the Time Lords. All members obtain their posts via means of periodic election…" Aislynn had been thinking about this topic for some considerable time. She scribbled madly for a few minutes, then tapped her tablet to the Doctor's, copying the notes to his screen. "You keep Houses, Lines, and Titles, but their functions become ceremonial as they are decoupled from political power. Everyone has a voice in the government, Time Lords and immigrants alike, but those who obtain political power are not those with the most perfect genetic pedigree. Rather, they are those individuals who can best work with their fellow citizens to obtain common goals."

The Doctor took the tablet and looked surprised.

"That's… not so bad," he mused as he looked it over. "It would need some tweaks, but it could be workable." He began tapping away at the tablet, pondering the possibilities.

"What's workable?" asked Susan, coming up to the conversation.

"Parliamentary procedure," snarked Rose.

"About time!" Susan grumbled. "Frees is getting insufferable!"

"Thank you for taking everyone for the sleepover," Aislynn smiled at her. "I trust they behaved themselves? And how is Freeya?" She had hardly seen the girl since Azari Bal, and she was worried.

"Everyone was fine," Susan smiled in return. "Freeya has nightmares, but they'll get better, in time… she's all right, or she will be. I actually wanted to talk to you about her, though," she added, and her face was concerned.

"Oh? What about her?"

"She can't regenerate. None of the children can. After what happened to Davian… everyone is scared, we live in dangerous times, the terrorists haven't been caught… I think everyone would be easier if we knew the children could regenerate if they were harmed. Is there anything you can do to rebuild it? If another child were to die..." but she left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

Aislynn looked surprised.

"I thought there was a secondary method for Time Lord conversion?"

"There is, but it's painful and extremely risky. While I grant you it worked for Tomoko, she is one of the fortunate few. The casualty rate is horrifying. I don't want to put Freeya through that."

Asilynn frowned deeply. She hadn't liked what had happened to Freeya on Azari Bal and liked even less the idea of putting every child on Gallifrey through some unknown, dangerous process to become Time Lords. Not that the Schism had ever been safe, exactly, but deaths from it hadn't been as common as Susan seemed to be describing with the other process.

"Two Singers isn't enough," she hated to break the bad news, but from the look on Susan's face, she suspected that the other woman already knew. "We'd be dead of exhaustion long before we could complete the foundation, let alone the quantum tunneling needed to produce a true Schism. Even the Block Transfer amplification effect present in the Masha collective wouldn't help; the computations required are very price, and the Lens of Rassilon was never meant for that sort of precision. It is, as it were, a blunt instrument."

"What if you had an amplifier? A proper one? Built for the purpose?"

The Doctor, Aislynn could instantly tell, was up to something. He was bouncing up and down on his trainers, had a "dotty professor" gleam in his eye, and the look on his face was almost manic.

"Amplifier?" she repeated, bemused.

"Could you do it if you had the Hand of Omega?" He looked at her as if he already knew the answer.

"The Hand of Omega?" Aislynn's brows shot to her hairline as she considered the question. "I understood from Taydin that you had some of the Ancient Artifacts from Gallifrey, but I wasn't aware that the Hand of Omega was one of them."

"It isn't," Susan scowled at her grandfather.

"That isn't the point," the Doctor waved this off. "If you had it, could you do it?"

Aislynn looked at Taydin and found that Taydin was looking at her. His expression was intrigued.

"We could base the equations on the prime number set of the Z-Man series…" he mused thoughtfully.

"It wouldn't work with the harmonic resonances without a filter," countered Aislynn. "We'd have to incorporate a subset… Schety? Soroban? Suan pan?"

"Suan pan is the closest…" Taydin responded, and they were off, delving into the eccentricities of the maths that they loved.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Errands

...

Gallifrey

Château

...

It was always a marvel and a delight to discuss the mathematics of Block Transfer Computation with Taydin. He was slightly stronger, mathematically, while she was slightly stronger musically, and the variation provided endless possibilities. In minutes, the conversation had attracted Guinn, and that brought Koschei, and soon Rose joined in, her voice speaking in Malla's lower, more refined cadences.

After some minutes of intense conversation about obscure mathematical references, Susan turned to the Doctor.

"Now look what you have done!" she teased. "I won't get a sensible word out of either of them for hours!"

By the time Diana strolled by several minutes later, the group was still going strong. The Doctor was looking like the cat who had swallowed the canary, dividing his time between listening to the group and poking at his tablet. Owen and Katie came to look as well, and Jake came because Diana was there.

"So," Diana looked at the Doctor, "For those of us who don't do maths at the fourteenth level, care to explain what is going on here?"

"The discussion has to do with a Time Lord artifact called the Temporal Schism," said the Doctor. "It's how Time Lords are made."

Diana looked at Susan.

"What about the boxy thing that you did with Tomoko?"

"The 'Boxy Thing,' as you so eloquently put it," Susan said, looking grim, "Is an old war device known as Project Uplift. It's extremely risky: Tomoko was very lucky that she lived. The chances were only fifty percent that she would survive the process. If she hadn't been about to die anyway, I wouldn't have risked it."

"I'm glad it worked. And thank you… for saving her life and stuff," Diana nodded thoughtfully.

"You're welcome," Susan replied, still looking rather sober. "I had a few bad moments there, actually."

"Traditionally," the Doctor interrupted, "A Gallifreyan child would visit the Schism at the age of eight to determine whether or not they would become a Time Lord. Unfortunately, there is no Schism on this Gallifrey."

"But the War Orphans are older than that, or a lot of them are. Isn't Freeya like, eleven?" Diana frowned.

"Yes," Susan said. "Not that that matters in the slightest. The triggering can happen at any time in their lives, but we like to do it as young as possible, because it is a huge shift for a person. Ask Rose, or Tomoko, how it felt to wake up a Time Lord after a lifetime as a human!"

"Wait," said Diana, scowling at them all. "You're saying that Freeya and Jenny and all of the kids can't become Time Lords? That it's the Project Uplift box or nothing?"

Susan and the Doctor looked at each other.

"In essence, that is the situation," he confirmed.

Diana crossed her arms.

"Forget that! How do we get one of these Schism things?"

"Is the Schism one of the buildings that was left on this Gallifrey when it was discovered?" asked Katie. "Can it be repaired?"

"It's not a building at all," said the Doctor. "It's an actual opening in the spacetime continuum, that looks into the Vortex. It was created in our original timeline by Rassilon, Omega, and the Other, which all happened long after this Gallifrey was depopulated."

"That's the topic of discussion?" asked Owen. "It sounds complicated."

"More complicated than you know," the Doctor said. "To rebuild it would require certain artifacts.. well, certain tools, not to put too fine a point on it. Some of them we have, the Sash of Rassilon and so on, but we're missing one called the Hand of Omega."

"Please tell me this isn't an actual hand! Ew!" Diana made a face.

"No, no," laughed the Doctor. "Perhaps the more accurate term would be the 'Glove of Omega,' eh?" He laughed again, clearly amused at her reaction.

"So, if you had this glove thing… could you rebuild the Schism?"

"That's the topic under discussion," Susan said, sounding as though her patience was being tried by the bickering mathematicians.

"For that matter," asked Jake, who was always more practical, "Do we even know where to find it? Or know how to make a new one, if we don't have it?"

"Well that is the interesting thing," The Doctor now looked like a cat who had swallowed several canaries, not just one. "It just so happens that I had the Hand in my possession for quite some time." He bounced up and down on his trainers, preening. "I even did a thorough scan of it and drew out some schematics. I have the blueprints for it right here," he continued, tapping his temple with a finger.

"Ha, very clever," teased Katie.

Diana looked at Aislynn and the other debating Time Lords, all of whom looked as if they could carry their mathematical discussion well into the next century, then put two fingers in her mouth. The resulting whistle was truly piercing. The conversation died instantly.

Diana scowled at all of them as they looked at her in surprise.

"The question is whether or not we can use this Omega whatsits to build the Schism," she scolded the lot of them, "Not to calculate the value of pi to the last digit! Do we need the Hand thing or not? Yes or no?"

"Er," said Aislynn, "Yes. To have any chance at all of success… yes, yes, we would need the Hand of Omega."

"Then quit gossiping and let's go get it!" Diana said, clearly exasperated with the realms of theory.

"It can't be that simple," protested Aislynn. "Surely if we knew where it was, someone would have already gone to fetch it."

"That's because it was destroyed some years back. Something about the Dalek, Davros, and a girl with a lot of explosives," the Doctor replied with a small smile.

"Then how are we supposed to use it?" Diana demanded.

"Well, I've been building a new one, in my spare time," he admitted.

"Then go get it and let's do this thing!"

"I would, Diana, but I am missing a few small, relatively crucial parts," the Doctor drawled, looking around at the assembled Time Lords and humans. "Don't suppose anyone would like to volunteer to go shopping, eh?"

"Shopping for what, precisely?" Aislynn frowned.

"Funny you should ask that," said the Doctor. "I happen to have a note…"

From his pocket he produced a note, a real paper note. From the wear and tear on the note, it appeared to have been in his pocket for some time. He offered it to Aislynn, who took it and looked saw when she read it; she passed it to Taydin, and he to the Koscheis, and so they each studied it in turn.

Koschei read the page and frowned.

"These parts were manufactured on Gallifrey, on the original Gallifrey. We don't have the infrastructure to make them any longer. It would take five minutes to manufacture the parts, but it would take years to build the infrastructure to create the necessary tools for the building… where did you get this note?"

"My mum left it for me," the Doctor said, and looked sad, and Koschei looked sad too as he handed the note back to Aisynn.

"What are these symbols at the bottom here?" She said, scanning the note more closely. "Are these… Aedok?"

"They are indeed," the Doctor said smugly. "Along with a set of coordinates…"

Elysium

Console Room

Two Days Later

"Is it wrong," Aislynn asked, "That I'm excited about this?"

"No," Taydin replied and smiled at her.

"How long were you stuck on Earth?" Diana pointed out. "And how long were you really, really sick before that? Now you are finally well, the Elysium is repaired, and you are doing what you want to do. You ought to be excited! I am excited for you!"

"You'll find the adventuring life grows on you," beamed Jake.

"We've been travelling for a couple of days… when will we get there?" wondered Owen.

"Are you asking if we are there yet?" Aislynn looked amused.

"Basically." He raised his eyebrows at her as Katie giggled at the exchange.

"We should arrive within the hour," she assured him.

"Will you show us the note again?" Katie wondered.

"Of course," Taydin said, and stretched it out on a flat place on the console. They all gathered around to look.

It was on a piece of paper, very unusual for the technology-loving Gallifreyan society, and contained only a few symbols. Most were numbers and letters that had been identified as a set of coordinates. Below that was a line of five symbols, square and spiky, of obviously non-Gallifreyan origin.

"And no one knows what is out this far?" asked Diana.

"No one. As far as I can tell, no Time Lord has ever been here previously," Taydin replied,

"With the possible exception of the Lady Professor," added Katie.

"With the possible exception of the Lady Professor," agreed Aislynn. "What worries me, though, isn't the location, it is the time factor."

"We do have a time machine," Jake pointed out.

"That's not what I mean," Aislynn said. "The kids are growing up. After what happened to Davian, I want this to happen as quickly as possible. I don't want to lose anymore of the children, and I am not the only one who feels that way. Susan stated that everyone was quite terrified."

Katie put her hands over her mouth, Taydin's shoulders slumped, and Owen scowled. Jake ran his fingers through his hair distractedly, making it stick up in every direction and drawing an amused smile from Diana, despite the seriousness of the statement.

"I didn't know that," Taydin groaned.

"We need to find the Doctor's bits and bob rather quickly then," Diana agreed.

"Yes, and his shopping list includes some really obscure bits of technology," Aislynn grumbled.

"Well, the Doc did say that most of the tech didn't really get invented in this universe, that we were going to have to raid civilizations that had that tech, most of whom died out a really long time ago," Jake reminded them.

"And that symbol doesn't translate correctly because…" Katie began but stopped, and it was clear what had interrupted her. There was the sound of a bell, musical as most of the console sounds were. At the same time, the blobs of golden liquid above the console, which had been illuminated and very active, suddenly ceased to glow and resumed their sluggish "lava lamp" behavior.

"We're here," said Taydin unnecessarily.

"Where is here, exactly? Other than 'someplace in the middle of nowhere that took us forever to reach?'" asked Diana.

"The intriguing part is that we don't know," Taydin said. "These are the coordinates from a book that the Doctor found about one of those aforementioned ancient races, but no one knows what is out here this far." He could hardly hide his excitement. "And those last symbols are known to be Aedok in origin, Katie. It doesn't translate directly because of its age."

They were all excited. Apart from the recent crisis on Logopolis, it was the first trip that Katie and Owen had taken. Jake and Diana, for whom such adventures were not uncommon, were standing close to each other, smiling. Taydin thumbed the controls. The four floating balls glowed, marking the corners of the picture as the enormous viewscreen cleared to show a breathtaking image.

They were in a solar system that none of them recognized. As always, the bottom portion of the screen was dedicated to scrolling Gallifreyan numbers; but the picture above them was magnificent. To one side hung an enormous gas giant, with rings stretching off into the distance. There were several moons visible, and beyond that, a twinkling sun. However, the majority of the screen was dominated by floating rocks.

"An asteroid field?" asked Diana.

"No, we're in the rings, I think," said Jake.

"Yes, indeed," said Aislynn, frowning at the readouts on the console. "These are definitely the correct coordinates.."

"Oh, Owen," breathed Katie as she saw the breathtaking view. Owen came to stand next to her, slipping one arm around her waist.

"There's nothing here," frowned Taydin.

"There's all sorts of things here," teased Jake, "Just none in this exact spot."

"Wait a moment," Aislynn scowled and looked more closely at the scanner. "Do you realize that well over half of these asteroids are hollow?"

"Really?" Diana looked interested.

"Yes, look!" Her hands moved over the controls. Over corners and edges of the large image were added a number of smaller pictures, showing the asteroids as if they had been X-rayed.

"Oh, they're geodes!" Diana cried. "Look, they all have crystals inside!"

"A crude, but essentially correct analysis," admitted Taydin. "They're not naturally occurring: they've been grown that way."

"Yes, they are all surprisingly uniform; even the crystals are aligned very symmetrically. What kind of crystals are they?"

"Plasmodium, Teranium, Oolian… ha, we should take that one home, care to be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams?... Stratium… most of the primary crystals of the Trioxidene group..."

"What are they doing here?" Wondered Jake.

"Well they were clearly made artificially," responded Taydin.

"By the reindeer guys?"

"The Aedok, Diana," Aislynn said, "And… I suppose it's possible." She and Taydin exchanged a significant look.

"I know that look," said Jake. "What is it?"

"Well the thing is that we don't know a great deal about the Aedok," said Aislynn. "Their civilization started around the same time as the Time Lords, but they died out long ago. There have been none for… oh, millennia now. It's one of the reasons their language is known, but still requires a bit of manual translation. That and the conceptual differences, of course."

"In this universe too?" asked Katie.

"Well, we don't know about this universe. No one has encountered any living Aedok that we are aware of, however."

"So, what do we know about them?" Asked Jake.

"Their technology went down a different path than that of the Time Lords. We became interested in the mastery of Time; the Aedok became obsessed with the legendary States of Being; it boiled down to conversion, energy to matter and back again. We do that also, of course, but it wasn't the central focus of our technological development."

"So, did they become… what, Energy Lords?" Owen snarked.

Aislynn hid her smile behind her hand. Taydin's response was solemn but his eyes twinkled in an amused fashion.

"No one knows what happened to the Aedok. Time Lord history never specifies. They are gone now, but no one knows how or why."

"So… how do you know that they made these things?" Diana nodded at the asteroid field.

"We don't," said Aislynn. "The age and composition of the asteroid ring, combined with the symbols from the book,, means that the possibility of Aedok manufacture cannot simply be eliminated at once. It doesn't mean that they made any of this. They could have, though, and that in itself is remarkable."

"Foolish to speculate," Taydin scolded mildly. "However, given our location: it's likely that the symbol would have referred to a specific asteroid. We'll have to try and run a cross-correlation with the age of the symbol and the orbits of the likely asteroids in the area, see which one would have crossed into this space…."

Diana scowled.

"That all sounds very math intensive."

"Just a bit, yes, but we'll have it sorted in a few weeks." Aislynn assured them, while the four humans groaned in despair.

"Weeks?" Jake groused.

"I hope you three are good at cards, because this is going to take a while," Katie agreed.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Brave New Worlds

...

Elysium

Console Room

...

"Instead of weeks spent doing maths why not choose that one?" Owen's voice was at its snarkiest as he pointed at the screen.

"Yes, why don't we just check out the one that is all bolted together?" Added Diana.

Taydin and Aislynn both looked up from the console at the same time.

"What?" They said simultaneously.

Diana put her hands on her hips.

"Lady-A!" she said. "Do you ever look at the actual picture on the screen, or do you just watch that number feed on the bottom?" She turned to the screen. "Wait, it's behind that big asteroid, I just saw it, wait for it to pass… there!" She pointed, then scowled as her finger went right through the image. "And these holographic screens are all well and good, but you cannot poke them!"

The Time Lords leaned forwards to look. Aislynn zoomed in to get a better picture.

'Bolted together' was perhaps an inaccurate description; but there was no question that the grouping of asteroids had been placed into an artificial shape. There were several of them forming the corners of a perfect cube, surrounding what was either an extremely large asteroid, or an exceptionally small moon. The moon was in the exact center of the geometric shape. Between the asteroids pulsed spherical blobs of energy, set into perfect lines.

"That looks bad," Jake frowned.

"I was going to say it looked remarkable," said Aislynn.

"No, I mean, this asteroid is going to hit it." Jake said grimly.

"Oh, you're right!" Aislynn agreed.

"It is a collision course," Taydin scowled. "I don't think it is going to hit, though… watch!"

It was a fascinating thing to see. When the asteroid drifted too close, one of the lines of energy split apart, striking it solidly. In moments it had been pulled into alignment, along with a second, smaller asteroid. The addition shifted the shape of the configuration from a cube into a flawless octahedron. Although all the other asteroids had changed positions, they remained equidistant from the moon, which never moved from the exact center of the formation.

"It must shift shape according to whatever asteroids are in the area," mused Aislynn.

"Do you think it only adds asteroids? Or does it lose them also?" asked Jake.

"Oh it must lose asteroids too, otherwise it would be well past a chiliagon by now," Taydin said, returning to the controls. "Let's do a scan of that moon…"

"What's a chiliagon?" wondered Diana.

"A thousand-sided, mathematical shape," Aislynn said absent-mindedly.

"Oh?" said Jake, rubbing his chin while his eyes sparkled mischievously. "What would a hundred sided shape be?"

"A hectagon," said Taydin.

"A million-sided shape?" prompted Owen.

"Megagon," Aislynn was also momentarily involved in the controls.

Diana elbowed Jake in the ribs while Katie scowled at Owen.

"Quit teasing the Time Lords!" she scolded.

"Ha, as I thought," Taydin beamed, "That moon is hollow."

"No atmosphere, we'll have to wear suits." Aislynn was frowning.

"Don't worry," Diana beamed. "Suits are all part of the adventure, right?"

"Quite correct," confirmed Taydin, and thumbed the materialization controls.

...

Unexplored Moon

...

"It's doing the sphere thing again," commented Diana as she followed the others outside, pointing to the Elysium, which was once again a floating ball of silver.

Taydin sighed as Aislynn pointed her tuning sonic at the entrance, closing it up.

"It's not as obvious in a zero-g environment, I suppose," he said regretfully. "I really will have to take the time to trace down that fault at some point."

Aislynn put away the tuning sonic, and directed her light around. The humans were all doing the same thing.

The suits on the Elysium, like everything else, could have come from the height of the 60's on Earth. The suits were silver, with sleek, graceful lines and bubble helmets. All of them were floating, using the embedded micro-jets to keep together, for there was no gravity and nothing besides the jets to keep them from floating away. Dust and pebbles drifted past their helmets. It was dark and cold, and the place gave the impression that no one had been there for eons.

"How does that even work?" Diana scowled at the Elysium as the door vanished, and it resumed its spherical shape. It had taken on the grayish color of the walls and might have been another floating boulder except for its pristine and perfect shape. "I thought sound waves didn't carry through a vacuum."

"They don't," said Taydin absent-mindedly. "The signal sent by the Tuning sonic to close the Elysium isn't sound based. It's a single photon charged to alter the alignment of the electrons in the closure mechanism."

"Ask a stupid question..." Owen chuckled and Diana snorted her amusement in reply.

"This place has been abandoned for a long time," Aislynn mused. "But, look how well it is preserved! The architecture is magnificent," she said, as the beams of light caught shapes in the darkness, of tall graceful pillars and high intricate ceilings.

The walls appeared to be of the same grayish material. It wasn't black, precisely, and yet the light refused to reflect off of it properly. Even when looking closely at the walls, it was very difficult to perceive details. The entire structure appeared to be made from narrow, parallel lines, running very close together. It seemed to be very hard; although there was dust in the air, no dust appeared when running one's glove over the surface of the walls. If only there had been an atmosphere, it would have been echoing; the tall buttresses and impossibly high ceilings gave it the air of an old gothic church, done all in black.

"I'll take your word for it, since I have no idea what it would look like brand new," joked Owen, flashing his own light around , trying to get a better idea of the size. The passageways were enormous, Owen's light fading into gloom without illuminating the ceiling above them.

"Looks like there are two passageways," said Jake, "One going this way, the other going that way. You want to take the nearer, or the further first?"

"I don't think it matters, the hallway scanned as circular, and there were no life-forms detected…" mused Aislynn.

"The direction doesn't matter, but splitting up the group does," Diana said. "Do not split up the group!"

From his belt pouch, Jake fished out a coin.

"Call it," he said to Diana.

"Heads," she said.

Owen looked surprised.

"Can you even flip a coin in…" but his voice trailed away as Jake tossed the coin up. It seemed to go very slowly, spinning gently, before he snatched it again, slapped it onto the back of his hand, and looked at it.

"Tails," he informed them. "That way."

"That way it is," Diana said.

Jake, Diana, and the Time Lords were accustomed to working in zero-G. Owen and Katie were not. There was a lot of laughter as they joyfully propelled themselves from place to place by pushing off of walls, at least until Owen missed a jump, and would have gone sailing away unhindered until Jake caught his ankle and pulled him back.

Almost exactly halfway around the circular corridor was a single, large room, with a square doorway. There was no door in the doorway. Above the doorway was a small, square plaque with more symbols on them. Diana floated up to the plaque and examined it.

"I thought the Elysium would translate all this stuff!" she protested.

"Give her a moment," said Aislynn, bouncing herself up as well. "There are hardly any known examples of Aedok in existence, it's bound to take a bit."

Katie, in the meantime, was shining her light into the room, which none of them had yet entered.

"It's full of sugar cubes!" she said in surprise.

"Sugar cubes?" Owen came to the doorway and looked also.

The square room was large, so large that their lights didn't illuminate the far end of it. It appeared to be perfectly cubical in shape, and there was a thin haze of dust, as there had been in all of the other rooms. In the dust, however, floated small, white shapes. They did indeed look like sugar cubes. They cast long thin shadows behind them, in the dust, as the illumination from the flashlights caught them.

"I doubt they're made of sugar," Taydin mused, pulling his sonic thoughtfully.

"Wait," said Diana. "I think the translation is coming through… " She scowled as the symbols seemed to shift into letters she could read.

"'Receptacle of Delay'?" She repeated in a tone of disbelief. "What the hell is a 'Receptacle of Delay'?"

"Apparently the closest match to the concepts portrayed by the symbols," Aislynn floated back down and looked into the room. Once Diana joined her, the entire group had their lights all shining into the room. With the additional illumination, it was possible to see further details.

The room didn't seem to be made of the same material as the outer corridors. It was whitish, apparently made of the same material as the cubes. Perhaps it was its perfectly square proportions, without furniture or fixture, that gave it the air of a mechanical place, or perhaps it was the perfect parallel lines, twisting all around, of the channels in the walls. Whatever the cause, it seemed to be a room meant for some kind of purpose.

One of the cubes was drifting near the door frame; and Owen reached out and snagged one.

"Oh, be careful," said Katie.

"Hey!" Owen said as he examined his prize. "These are dice!"

"No way," said Jake, and they all leaned closer to look.

It did look uncommonly like a dice cube. It was made of that strange whitish material, and each of its six sides had a symbol inscribed in it; the same symbol on each side. They waited, but the symbol did not change: it seemed that this symbol also was one that would not translate. It was not one of the symbols that had been left on the note from the Lady Professor. Those symbols hadn't translated either.

"I think they're all like that," Diana said, catching another one. "This one has a symbol on it too, see?" She pushed off into the room.

"Be careful, Angel," said Jake.

"Healing factor'll deal with any problems," said Diana absent-mindedly, but it became apparent, after a moment, that nothing was going to happen, and the rest of the group slowly followed.

"There are hundreds of these," Katie said, drifting about the room, plucking cubes out of the air, looking at them, and then letting them go again. "They all appear to be unique… none of them seem to have the same symbols as any of the others."

Jake had drifted over to one of the walls.

"These lines are different from the ones in the corridor," he said. "It looks like they all lead to the door."

"Or from the door to the back wall," said Diana, who had pushed herself all the way to the ceiling. "The ceiling has these same lines."

"So does the floor," added Owen.

"Hello," said Taydin, and they all came to look.

The entire back wall was covered in a complicated grid. In each of the grid squares, a symbol appeared. Each square of the grid was indented, as if the countless thousands of floating cubes had once filled the tiny alcoves in the wall.

In the middle of the wall were a series of seven indentations that were recessed much farther than the others. Two were filled with cubes and the cubes in them were lit: the rest were darkened. It was clear that this was a panel of some sort, but there was no way to tell what it did. The remaining spaces remained grouped by themselves in a neat little lines, carefully framed, looking almost lonely in their emptiness, and book-ended by the two filled slots. The panel was in the exact center of the wall, surrounded by symbols running several feet deep on every side.

"This is obviously meant to be filled," Owen mused.

"With what?" Jake gestured to the room with the cubes floating everywhere. "There's only five spaces. There's zillions of these things!"

Katie had caught one of the cubes and was floating along, looking for the matching symbol among those engraved into the back wall. Eventually finding it, she tapped the cube to its match, but nothing happened.

Aislynn, meanwhile, was scanning the wall with her sonic.

"This is obviously a device," she said almost unnecessarily. "But I can't tell what it does."

Taydin came and looked.

"It might be in working condition," he mused. "But there doesn't appear to be a way to…"

"Hey! Hey!" Called Diana excitedly from the center of the room. "Check it out! I found the reindeer guy!"

"Wait, what?" said Owen.

She was holding up a cube with an enormous grin. In a moment she had pushed herself across the room to the back wall, a cube triumphantly between her fingers.

With a thrill of alarm, Aislynn saw her intent.

"Diana! Don't…"

But it was too late. Diana had reached the back wall, and without hesitation, she put her cube in the third slot out of the empty five.

"Diana!" Scolded Aisynn. "We don't even know what this thing does…"

"Angel, be careful," added Jake.

Nothing seemed to happen for a moment. Then the cube, loosely floating in its slot, suddenly clicked as it seemed to lock into place. Seconds later it had been withdrawn until its face was even to the level of all the other squares, all over the wall.

On the far side of the wall, near Katie, one of the symbols lit up. She jumped, but then peered at it.

"Oh!" She said. "This is the same symbol!"

"Diana!" Scolded Aislynn. "Don't put strange cubes into strange machines, when we don't know what they do!"

"Don't give me that!" she countered. "In five minutes you would have done the same thing, but you would have given a speech first about the value of Pi or something."

Aislynn looked wounded.

"It would have been about probability vectors," she pouted in an undertone.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Geometry

...

Receptacle of Delay

...

"Diana," said Taydin, "Why did you put the cube in the third slot?" he tapped the wall over the remaining indentations. "Why not the first?"

"Because that's where it was on the note."

"On the note?" He reached into his belt pouch, unfolded it, and looked at it again. "Rassilon's breath... they're even depicted in individual squares," he said, showing the note to the rest. "Oh, you clever, clever girl! Come on, you lot, let's see if we can find the rest of these…"

The next few minutes were occupied by a search for cubes. Katie preferred to look at cubes, then gather the failing ones in a grouping that rapidly grew into a sort of a loosely-organized ball. Owen was also contributing to the same ball. Aislynn and Taydin were scanning with their sonics, while Diana preferred to zoom all over the room, gathering bunches of cubes, sorting through them all, then putting the rejects wherever she happened to be, so that there were little patches of concentrated cubes here and there. Jake was alternating between making his own grouping of cubes, and laughing at Diana's antics.

It took some dedicated effort by all of them, but at length the matching cubes had been located. Taydin checked each of them against the note until they were sure they had found the correct ones.

"Shall we?" he said, and they slotted the new cubes in. They clicked into place just as the first cube had, and the corresponding symbols lit up.

There was a long silence.

"Is that it?" wondered Owen. "There's bound to be… whoa!"

The room broke up. The section containing the now-filled slots withdrew so far that they couldn't see where it had gone. And not just the slots themselves: the section that pulled back was shaped like a perfect cube. Once there was a space free, lines raced all along the wall, splitting it into perfect squares, which began sliding around madly. Each surface of the room, the walls, ceiling, and floor, was doing the same thing.

"Door's gone," Jake said grimly, pointing his flashlight back the way they had come.

"It's like an inside-out Rubik's cube," mused Katie.

"What's a Rubik's cube…?" wondered Diana.

"Never mind, get to the center of the room," Taydin herded them all away from the walls. "Let it reconfigure itself."

Even staying in the center of the room wasn't entirely safe; basketball-sized cubes pulled away from the walls, flying across the room, and embedding themselves into opposing walls where spaces had opened for them. By instinct, Jake and Diana paired up with Owen and Katie, helping to make sure they weren't inadvertently hit by the sudden traffic. Across the room, Taydin had hold of Aislynn's hand, helping her to do the same thing. After a few very exciting minutes, things calmed down and the walls appeared to be satisfied with their new configuration.

In the center of the room, a light flickered into life. They all pulled away from it in some alarm, but it didn't seem to do anything. Like the room itself, the light formed a perfect cube, pulsing in different colors, suspended above the floor, some seven feet on a side.

"Is that it?" Wondered Owen. "Is it done re-configuring itself?"

"No," said Jake, and he sounded alarmed.

They cast their lights around and saw what had alerted him; on every side, the walls were pulling in. The room was retaining its perfectly cubical shape that it had maintained throughout, but now the amount of space was shrinking as the walls moved inexorably towards them.

"Lucky sand-gun?" said Diana.

"No, into the light, go go go!" Taydin gave Owen a nudge, eyeing the walls.

"Right, going!" Owen took Katie's hand, and they swooped into the light together.

They reached the center of the cube. Their forms fluoresced strangely. Light played across their skin in square patterns and a moment later they were gone.

"Owen! Katie!" Called Jake.

"Coming!" Diana grabbed Jake's hand and they followed. A moment later, they too were gone.

Aislynn looked at Taydin.

"Do you have any idea where this leads?" she asked him.

"None whatsoever," he said and grabbed her hand. They entered the light together, and a moment later the room was empty.

...

Arrival

...

"Taydin?"

Aislynn looked around in some alarm. Taydin wasn't there. No one was there. She was floating, alone, in a blank white space. The only other object present was a door.

Seeing no other course of action, Aislynn opened the door and stepped through.

On the other side of the door was an office she knew very well. She had visited it often during the war.

It was circular and the lighting was low. The carpeting was deep and green. The walls the ceiling were dominated by huge curving glass windows, with huge skylights above them. The view from the room was Gallifrey, the mountain falling beneath them and rising behind them. The tangerine sky stretched above them, dotted with pinkish clouds. The only thing in the room was an antique desk and a chair.

Behind the desk stood the Lady Professor, exactly as Aislynn had known her during the War. Her hair was ginger going gray, her robes were red, and her eyes seemed to hold a vast and unknowable weight. Dozens of screens floated above the desk, each filled with the Lady Professor's careful mathematical notations. Glancing at them, Aislynn had a feeling that they were trying to tell her something, something vast and profound, but the occupant of the desk had her attention riveted upon her.

Aislynn was surprised for a moment; and then she narrowed her eyes as she came into the room.

"Lady Professor," she said.

"Lady Aislynn," said the Lady Professor.

"You are, of course, dead," Aislynn scowled at her.

"I, of course, am not the Lady Professor," came the response. "I'm a simulacrum, embedded here some time ago and now reactivated by you and your group."

"You were expecting the Doctor," Aislynn said, and the thought was a sad one. The Doctor had survived the war. His mother had not. Seeing her image would surely have broken his hearts, again.

"He was not in your group," said the Lady Professor.

"No," Aislynn said. "We are here on his behalf. And speaking of the rest of my group, where are they?"

"I am interviewing each of them separately," responded the Lady Professor. "They haven't come to any harm. I had indeed expected the Doctor to be part of the expedition."

"He was not able to come," Aislynn said regretfully. "He sent us as his representatives. Speaking of which… where are we, exactly?"

"You are in a room in which we cannot be overheard," replied the Lady Professor. She paused. "Aislynn… I'm sorry."

Aislynn, who had turned to scowl at the numbers on the screens, was startled out of her thoughts, and looked at the Lady Professor to see that her eyes had misted over. "I only found out afterwards," she said in a low voice. "I never would have…"

"I know," Aislynn tried, and failed, to hide the tone of weary disillusionment in her tone.

A moment later her old friend came and embraced her: and Aislynn embraced her back.

"I am so sorry," said the Lady Professor.

"I've missed you," Aislynn told her. The embrace was a brief one but Aislynn felt much the better for it. She and the Lady Professor had become very close during the later half of the war, when she had been smuggling survivors to Gracepoint, and there had been times when she had felt horribly lonely for the absence of the older Time Lord. "It's so good to see you again… no, I can't let myself get distracted, time is of the essence… where are we?"

"In the larger sense," The Lady Professor said with a smile, "You are in the realms of the Aedok, or what is left of them."

"The realms of the Aedok!" Said Aislynn in surprised. "There are no Aedok; they died out millenia ago."

"True," said the Lady Professor, "But they built all of this before they disappeared."

"All of what, precisely?"

The Lady Professor brought a tray of tea things.

"Cream? Two sugars?"

Lady Aislynn couldn't help but smile. She had had tea so often with the real Lady Professor that even her simulacrum remembered.

"If you please." she took her cup gratefully.

"You must have noticed the rings on the way in?"

"Of course… some sort of… giant data retrieval system, I take it?" Aislynn took a sip of her tea. It was as good as she remembered. From the corner of her eye, she saw the equations shifting and dancing, their patterns tickling at her mind.

Aislynn was a Singer and Singers possessed a variety of mnemonic tricks when it came to numbers. She took a moment to employ one, etching the numbers precisely into her own memory, where she would be able to study them later. When she wanted to recall them, she would be able to remember them exactly and perfectly, down to the last decimal point.

The Lady Professor saw what she was doing, and smiled in an approving way.

"More than that. There are worlds stored here."

"Worlds!" said Aislynn in surprise, tearing her eyes away from the screens, letting the numbers write themselves into her head from the edges of her range of vision.

"Yes, indeed, their entire society, what we know of it, was dedicated to matter-to-energy conversion. They converted worlds, the Aedok. They created them too; once you have the system worked out, it's possible to feed it data and it will create the world you specify."

Aislynn took another sip of her tea, thinking hard.

"I'm familiar with the concept, I've seen it in several races and time periods… holodecks and the like, but this sounds much more intricate… matter to energy… it would mean that each of the asteroids we scanned earlier was its own storage system, presumably maintaining its own environment… except they are inactive, aren't they? Yes, I think so, until they approach the central station here, it acts like a reader." An idea struck her suddenly. "They're data crystals! They're enormous, interactive data crystals! Except instead of reading them you… you walk inside and interact with them, is that it?"

"You're getting there," smiled the Lady Professor, taking a sip of her own tea and leaning back in her chair to watch her.

"Matter to energy conversion… and then back from energy to matter? Meaning you can store thing, real physical things, convert them to energy patterns, and retrieve them later by converting them back into matter? The perfect place to hide something you don't want found… the missing parts for the Hand of Omega, for instance?"

"You can't believe it's going to be that easy," responded the Lady Professor.

"It never is," Lady Aislynn sighed.

"Your first problem is that none of you are the Doctor. I had intended to release the Hand to no one else, particularly to a group of people whom I do not know."

"You know both myself and Scout Commander Taydin," pointed out Aislynn. "I worked with you extensively during the War. I also suspect you were created well after the Scout Commander's heroic actions in relation to the Dalek Battle Fleet."

"Indeed. And yet neither you nor the Scout Commander have any special reason to have a great love for Gallifreyan leadership," countered the Lady Professor. "Particularly you."

"You were not part of the Gallifreyan leadership who betrayed me," Aislynn said tartly. "Furthermore," she continued in a more mollified tone, "This isn't the Gallifrey I left. It's an entirely different place and I… feel welcome there. I never thought I would feel welcome on Gallifrey again," she mused.

"But it doesn't have the Schism. I suspect that you think if only you can get hold of the Hand, you can Sing it back into existence, is that it?" The Lady Professor fixed Aislynn with a sharp and beady eye. "You can't tell me you have the math sorted."

"It proofs," Aislynn replied, but she had a scowl on her face when she said it.

"But you don't like it, do you? Don't you think that means there is something wrong with it?"

Aislynn scowled, considering the question carefully. How often she and the Lady Professor had had discussions just like this one during the War.

"I think… I think…."

"Yes?"

"I think he was wrong," Aislynn said at last.

"Who was wrong? And wrong about what?"

"Rassilon," Aislynn mused. "About Singing. About the difference between what the song is, and what it is made of." She chuckled at herself, amazed at the statement, even though it had come out of her own mouth. "The father of Block Transfer Computation, the man who invented the discipline and I… I think he's wrong." She stood up and paced around the office, wrestling with the enormity of that. "The maths proof but…" She shook her head, trying to explain. "It's all right in my head, but it's all wrong in my hearts. Everything adds up, but I… I know that something is missing. I know it, I feel it, I know the premise that Singers operate on facts and not feelings, but I've also learned to trust my instincts." She paused for another moment, then spoke the phrase that hung so heavily in her mind. "Somewhere there is a false premise. Rassilon is wrong. Not just from a moral standpoint, but mathematically."

"Rassilon? You have spoken to him recently?"

"A backup copy of himself that he had left laying about," Aislynn shuddered. "Very problematic, but sorted now. But yes, we did speak."

She came back to the table and took a sip of her tea to steady her nerves.

She had never before dared to voice the idea that Rassilon was, or could be, wrong. She was a bit surprised that she hadn't been struck by lightning. Yet, she felt better after voicing her belief. In her hearts she was absolutely convinced of the correctness of what she was saying.

"He hurt you." It wasn't a question. The Lady Professor was watching her closely.

"Yes," Aislynn shuddered visibly, but did not elaborate. "But I'm healing, or… or trying to."

The Lady Professor considered this and took a sip of her tea.

"You think there is a difference, then? Between what a Song is, and what it's made of?"

"Yes. Yes, I do. I… I can't articulate it yet, but I know it, I feel it, I… I can sense it."

The Lady Professor looked both pleased and interested. From the corner of her eye, Aislynn watched the numbers shifting again, this time at a greater speed, not following them yet, but copying them all down in that portion of her memory which she had set aside for the purpose.

"You and Taydin are the two most gifted Singers I ever trained," said the Lady Professor, and Aislynn looked up at her in surprise. She was shocked to be put in the same sentence, let alone the same category, as Taydin. Everyone knew that Taydin was the greatest Singer of the age.

"You can't possibly believe I am in the same league as Scout Commander Taydin," Aislynn was pleased by the compliment, but also blushing madly. The Lady Professor always could make her blush like a schoolgirl.

"I believe you may surpass him," the Lady Professor said, and Aislynn stared at her with her mouth open in shock. "Which brings up an important point," the Lady Professor continued, disregarding this, and the pleased look vanished. She sounded almost awkward. Aislynn was very surprised at the range of emotions displayed by the Lady Professor; could she be looking at a true engram? "If I were to permit you passage, you would be entering the realms of the Aedok. These are places which are removed from reality as we know it. The mathematical variances are… extreme."

"In other words, you are recommending against Singing?"

"In the strongest possible terms."

Aislynn thought this over as she sipped her tea.

"Singing always begins by studying the problem, observing one's surroundings. Perhaps I ought to restrict myself strictly to the study, hm?"

"That could lead to interesting possibilities," the Lady Professor mused. "Shall we see whether it is your theory or Rassilon's that proves to be correct?"

And just like that, Aislynn was standing somewhere else.


	6. Chapter 6

Song of the Schism

Part Two: On the Nature of Reality

Chapter Six

Interviews

...

Taydinfinlass found himself in a familiar office. He was alone: there was no sign of Aislynn or his companions.

Well, not quite alone: the Lady Professor was there. It was her office at the Academy. He felt a wave of homesickness standing there. How many times had he come to this office for answers, first as a student and later as a fellow teacher? The desk, piled high with data chips and research tablets, the walls covered in artwork, tucked in between towering shelves filled with more data chips, readers, glass jars filled with aetheric data, sculptures from a dozen worlds, and tokens of esteem from students past and present; it was as familiar to him as his own home and just as welcome.

The only jarring note was that, in the background, he could hear the faint sounds of war; the bombs, from this distance, made occasional muffled boomings, even from the safety of this room. The sound seemed odd when set against the thick carpeting and cool, fresh air.

The Lady Professor herself was stunning in her sharp reality, so crisp and clear that for a moment he goggled at her, unable to help himself.

"Taydin, you're staring." The Lady Professor chuckled and he shook himself out of his reverie.

"An upload from the Matrix?" he said with some surprise.

"With an overlay of specialized programming," she replied. "I was placed here by the original Lady Professor, to await the arrival of my son. Typical of him to not do what I expected of him," she replied, with a grimace of annoyance.

"When does he ever?" Taydin retorted, feeling much the same as she did just then. "He's got his hands full with the rebuilding of Gallifrey just now. However, we have come on his behalf." Taydin took a breath and asked the question that was most pressing to him. "What of my companions? Aislynn? Diana and Jake? Katie and Owen?"

"Unharmed. I am interviewing each of them separately, as I am interviewing you."

Taydin narrowed his eyes.

"Interviewing? Interviewing for what, precisely?"

"When I was created, the Time War was in full swing," the Lady Professor replied.

"And thus you have no particular reason to trust a group of Time Lords who show up out of nowhere when the Doctor isn't with them, even if you do know us," Taydin mused. "We have your note, but we could have stolen it. We could be being blackmailed into retrieving it, or a thousand other things."

"Precisely. However, I know full well that you would resist such things to the end. You have always behaved with honor, which is why I wanted to talk to each of you separately from the others. If you were being forced, you'd tell me, even at risk to your own life."

"Because I have proven that I am stubborn enough to fight to the end, just like I nearly Sang myself to death? Yes, I can see that," Taydin replied and didn't bother to hide the bitterness in his tone.

"You saved many lives," the Lady Professor chided him, but with a kind tone and a compassionate gaze.

"For a while. They are all dead now." He shot back, still angry at the terrible loss of life.

The Lady Professor inclined her head, her shoulders sagging under the weight of his words.

"I am so very sorry. Even though Susan told me what would happen, I always hoped that we could still avert that fate," she said, and looked as if she really was grieved. "But, now you are here, in the realms of the Aedok, healed of your wounds. You wish passage. So, tell me why I should grant it?"

"We are attempting to reassemble the Hand of Omega," Taydin replied, deciding that, in this case, honesty would be the best policy. Had he been alone, he might have given a different response; but picturing the replies his companions must be giving, particularly Diana, dictated the necessity of truthful answers. No doubt the Lady Professor engram was comparing the responses from all of them; there was no telling what she would do if their replies varied too wildly.

"If we cannot recreate the schism, we will lose the next generation of Time Lords."

The Lady Professor sat back in her chair and narrowed her eyes slightly.

"Tell me about the Hand of Omega," she prompted.

Taydin narrowed his own eyes. A test? But it made sense; the details of the Hand of Omega were largely unknown to non-Singers; even to most Time Lords. It was certainly a quick and easy way to expose an imposter. He, however, knew much more about this particular topic than most of his peers before the war; not only was he a Singer himself, but he had taught on this exact subject at Academy, which the Lady Professor knew well. So, this was also a test to make sure that he really was who he said he was.

"The Hand of Omega is generally considered to encompass the five principal pillars of Block Transfer Mathematics," he began, marveling inwardly at how easily he slipped back into 'professor' mode, even after two centuries away from the classroom. "The five pillars represent the concepts of Order, Chaos, Resonance, Singularity, and Multiplicity." He smirked at the Lady Professor. "Shall I continue, or have you heard this lecture before?"

"One or two times, I suppose," she teased and Taydin found himself smiling despite it all. This simulation was so much like the original that he was charmed by her, much as he had been by her real self.

"Why the test then?" he asked, checking if his suppositions were correct.

"Because you will need that understanding to find the components," she said. "I did a thorough survey of this universe, before I sent everyone here. I knew that there would be problems finding certain things, so I did what I could to provide them. However, I also knew that there were those in this universe as well as... elsewhere, that might object to the recreation of the Time Lords. So the parts you need have been broken down into five items. You'll need to track down each one separately. This way I supply this rather dangerous item to my people, but also protect it from those... others," she explained.

"I don't like that." Taydin scowled. "I do understand the reasoning, but I don't like the thought of us running all over the place on a glorified scavenger hunt with possible enemies opposing us."

"You could always leave," countered the Lady Professor. "I can send you back to your ship if you prefer."

"And my companions?"

"Would stay or go as they chose… if, of course, I decide to grant them passage."

"Then I am staying," he responded flatly. "They will be staying and I won't leave them."

"Good," smiled the Lady Professor.

Just like that, he was elsewhere.

...

Owen Harper

...

Owen found himself in an office he didn't recognize. It was wood paneled with huge arching windows that looked out at a Gallifrey at once familiar and entirely different from the one he had left. Above were skylights that let the orange light play across the surfaces of an antique looking desk and chair. Underfoot was a thick green carpeting that was like moss beneath his boots.

There was an old woman there, but she hardly looked frail. She wore red velvet robes and her ginger hair, streaked with silver, was done up in a knot at the back of her neck. She had penetrating hazel eyes and an expression of patient interest as she allowed him time to absorb his surroundings before he spoke.

None of this, however, alarmed him. What did alarm him was that, with the exception of the old woman, he was alone here.

"Where's Katie?" He demanded, first thing.

The old woman held up her hands.

"She's quite safe. I am interviewing each of you separately. I will not harm any of you."

"Well in that case," Owen held out his hand, "Dr. Owen Harper. Pleased to meet you."

The Lady Professor awkwardly held out her own hand, looking somewhat bemused as Owen shook it, as if it was an unfamiliar gesture to her.

"You may call me the Lady Professor," she said. "You… are a human?"

"First Welshman in space." Owen grinned.

"You are travelling with two Time Lords."

"Aislynn and Taydin. And three humans: Katie, Jake, and Diana. Whom you are interviewing separately." Owen snarked.

"It's highly unusual for humans to travel with Time Lords. Why are you here?"

Owen's eyes twinkled.

"Why am I here personally? Or why is my group here?"

"Both."

"I am here because I was briefly Infected by a Time Lord, then cured by another one."

The Lady Professor's eyes sharpened.

"What about your planet? Was it Infected?"

Owen shook his head.

"There were only three of us that ever caught it. I was the one that lived."

"And you are cured now."

"Yes, indeed."

She looked thoughtful.

"May I inquire as to the name of the Time Lord that cured you?"

Owen scrunched up his face, concentrating hard.

"I believe her full name is Susanatrevalar, though her husbands, Koschei and Guinn, did the actual Nanite creation, from what I gather."

She smiled suddenly at Koschei's name, but remained silent for a moment.

"Ah… Susan. She is married now? To Koschei? They are well and happy?" she asked, looking up at him with a face he knew well from a thousand waiting rooms and consulting offices. A relative or friend, asking after a patient in his care.

"Yes," he confirmed, gentling his tone and smiling at her reassuringly. "They are all very happy. Kind of disgustingly so, really," he joked.

"I am very glad to hear that," she replied softly. "I'm sorry that they couldn't come. And your group? Why did you come here?"

"Well, the Time Lords are trying to rebuild Gallifrey and they're missing something called the Schism. From what I have been able to glean, it is the way that Gallifreyan children are converted into Time Lords. Mind you, I'm still studying Gallifreyan physiognomy, so I am no expert. What I want to know is: What is this place? How does it work?"

"Your group scanned the asteroid belt when you approached, is that correct? No doubt you noticed the hollow asteroids?"

"The geodes? Yes, we saw them."

"The 'geodes,' as you call them, perform the act of resonance processing according to the principles of…" She trailed off at the look on Owen's face, frowned, and tried again. "They are… filters, of a sort. Each carries a specific sort of resonance. The Centralized Harmonic Station can then interpret the frequencies of those sub-stations that fall within its range of influence."

Owen thought this over, taking a couple of paces backwards and forwards before his face cleared.

"Ha! It's a CD player!" Owen said triumphantly. "It's the biggest CD player known to mankind!"

The Lady Professor blinked at him, clearly startled.

"It's a… a what?" She repeated blankly, her eyebrows drawing together.

"A disc, a compact laser disc." He beamed at her. "It's flat and round, has a hole in the center, and it spins. A laser writes on the disc by putting… I don't know, grooves or something in it. Then when you want to read it later, you put the disc in the player, and the laser interprets the pattern of grooves it cut there before. The geodes are your grooves and the moon base is your laser. When the asteroids pass close enough to the moon, the moon reads the data inside the asteroid. Have I just about got it?"

The Lady Professor took a sip of her tea, seemingly to buy herself time to think.

"While the comparison is so oversimplified as to be all but useless, I do concede that there are applicable similarities. However, there are two extremely important differences," she told him in a gentle tone.

"Oh? And what are those?"

"The asteroids don't necessarily just drift to the moon by happenstance. They can be specifically summoned if one enters the correct sequence into the controls. You've obviously been to the controls; otherwise you wouldn't be here." She offered something to Owen, and he took it. At first he thought it was a sugar cube; but then he recognized it. It was a small white square, with a symbol incised upon it.

"Hey! We found a bunch of these earlier and…"

"...inserted them into a series of openings?" She was looking quite pleased.

"Yes. So these… summoned asteroids? To us?"

"Indeed they did. The specific asteroids named in the sequence of symbols that you entered. They are on their way, even as we speak."

He frowned thoughtfully, turning it over and over in his fingers.

"So.. a 'Receptacle of Delay'... is… what, exactly?"

"An extremely literal translation. The more common verbiage would be, 'Waiting Room.'"

Owen threw back his head and laughed out loud and the Lady Professor grinned back at him with Susan's impish smile. He caught himself speculating and forced his mind back onto the task at hand.

"What is the second thing?" he asked, when he finally had himself back under control.

"The asteroids don't technically handle information in the manner in which you seem to be envisioning them."

"Oh? I thought they were like little data storage units."

"No, that's incorrect." The Lady Professor smiled. "They're more like… doorways."

The office vanished from around him, just like that.

...

Katie Harper

...

"Where's Owen?" Katie demanded from the old woman in the office.

"Quite safe," she responded, not looking in the least perturbed. "Each of your associates is being interviewed separately. I am the Lady Professor. I won't harm any of you."

Katie took a moment to think this over.

"Dr. Katie Harper," she said in response. "And… interviewed for what?"

"You stand on the threshold of the Realms of the Aedok," said the Lady Professor. "I'm not going to grant passage to just anyone who knocks."

"And why is that, precisely?" Katie narrowed her eyes. "Are they dangerous, these 'Realms of the Aedok?'"

"Oh yes," the Lady Professor looked solemn. "They are the means by which the Aedok destroyed themselves."

"Is that what happened?" said Katie in surprise.

"Yes," confirmed the Lady Professor. "At the height of their society, the Aedok were immensely powerful. Their technology was comparable to the Time Lords, back in the day. The Time Lords, however, turned their attention to the mastery of Time. The Aedok turned the whole of their energies into the inception of these Realms, and were subsequently consumed by their own creation."

"Consumed!" Katie said in surprise.

"Oh yes," said the Lady Professor. "There are many dangers here. It would be… inadvisable for some unfortunate individual to happen upon this place by accident."

Katie thought this over, looking around the room, and didn't respond at once.

"Many dangers, you say," she mused.

"Yes. If you are frightened, I can send you back to your ship."

"Without Owen?" Katie shot back. "Absolutely not!"

"You would prefer to be with him, even knowing the possible danger?"

"Especially knowing the possible danger!" She retorted hotly, crossing her arms. "However, I do wonder… what would you say is the most dangerous thing about these Realms?"

The Lady Professor smiled at her.

"Now there is a sensible question." She beamed. "I do like you. Do you see that clock on the bookshelf? Bring it over here, would you?"

Katie looked until she spotted the clock, the size of the palm of her hand, standing by itself in between two sets of books. Picking it up, she realized it was a traveling-clock, or more specifically two traveling-clocks, as there was a clock on each side. The little square upon which it sat was actually its cover, so that it could be folded up and carried in a pocket.

"What do you need it for?" she asked as she brought it over.

"I don't need it. But you will. Or, more specifically, you will need what it represents."

"What does it represent?"

"You will note there are two dials. The gold warns of a barrier collapse; when it goes off you must evacuate to the Station at once." The Lady Professor fixed Katie with an intense stare. "Be sure you remember that; in the event of a barrier collapse, drop whatever you are doing and run to the station to evacuate."

"What's a…" started Katie, but the Lady Professor shook her head.

"I'm sorry, but I haven't the luxury of further explanations."

"At least tell me what the silver dial does."

"The silver dial warns of the amount of time you have before the door back to your ship closes for good, and you become as trapped in the Realms as their original creators."

Katie didn't have time to respond. The office was gone, and she found herself standing in an entirely different place, the travelling-clock ticking away peacefully in the palm of her hand.

...

Jake Simmonds

...

Jake looked around in surprise to find himself in a well-furnished office. He had never met the Lady Professor in person, but he recognized her from the big portrait of her back on Gallifrey and bowed politely.

"You're the Lady Professor?" he asked her.

She looked surprised.

"Indeed I am. I haven't had the pleasure of your name, though."

Jake smiled at her.

"My name is Jake Simmons, Head of Torchwood Field Operations. Your portrait hangs in the dining room of the Doctor's house, so you're a bit hard to forget. I see you at every meal." He looked around one more time. "I came here with five friends…"

The Lady Professor held up her hand.

"All safe," she assured him. "Being interviewed separately."

"And this is my interview, is it?"

"It is indeed." The Lady Professor smiled at him.

"Can I ask questions during this interview?"

"If you like." Chuckled the Lady Professor.

"Then my first question is… aren't you dead?"

She crossed back behind her desk, and Jake took one of the chairs on the other side.

"I don't know the fate of my creator. The original Lady Professor was quite alive when I was written."

"Like an Engram? In the Matrix?" Jake had far and away the most experience of the humans in dealing with the Time Lords.

"Very similar, in fact, though slightly more limited. I was placed here some time ago."

"For what purpose? Anything to do with the Hand of Omega?" He stretched back in the chair, feeling quite at ease, with his best mate's dead mother-in-law. He almost laughed thinking about what all had become 'normal' to him over the years.

"Yes indeed, very perceptive," her eyes twinkled at him. "You do realize that I am supposed to be asking you questions, not the other way around?"

"So? We can take turns; you ask one question, I'll ask the next one."

"Amusing," she mused. "Why are you here?"

Jake considered the question carefully.

"Because of a war orphan named Davian," he said sadly.

The Lady Professor covered her hand with her mouth and stood up from her chair, staring at him in horror and alarm.

"Davian… what happened to him?"

"He… died. I'm sorry," he added, as she paced away from him. He could feel the rage rising in him again, despite his efforts to stay calm. "There was a terrorist bombing. Davian… well, he had never been exposed to the Schism, and so he couldn't regenerate. We couldn't get there fast enough to save him."

The Lady Professor didn't answer at once. She stood very still, with her back to him. He walked over to her and hesitated a moment before he placed his hand on her shoulder. She looked up, startled by the gesture.

"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it. Her face crumpled, grief etching even deeper lines in her face.

"It's always more difficult when the children die," she said in a choked voice, but then shook her head. "There were a number of children whom I had planned to send to safety…"

"All on Gallifrey, and except for Davian, all alive," Jake assured her. He walked her back to her desk, took his own seat, and they talked for a while, of the children. Of Freeya and her love of Susan's cookies: of Jenny and her propensity for getting into mischief.

"As pleasant as all this has been," the Lady Professor prompted after a few minutes of small talk, "I believe it is your turn for a question."

Jake considered the many things he wanted to ask her.

"This place is pretty remote, I gather," he mused. "How did you even find it?"

Her face darkened visibly.

"It was discovered as part of an operation by the Celestial Intervention Agency, by one of their agents," she explained. "They were searching for super-weapons, for the War. When the agent vanished, I investigated." She looked at him significantly. "It was through his work that I was first alerted of this alternate timeline."

"What happened to him? The agent who made the discovery?"

She didn't answer at once.

"He's still here."

Jake was surprised

"Still here! He's alive?"

"No… no, I wouldn't say that."

Jake nodded his understanding.

"He died, then."

The Lady Professor shook her head.

"No, he wasn't that fortunate," was the last thing he heard, before the office vanished from around him.

...

Diana Thirty-Seven

...

"Hey!" Diana protested, finding herself in an office. "Where is everybody?"

"All safe," said the Lady Professor. "Being interviewed by me."

"An interview?" Diana thought this over. "Like, a job interview?"

"Something like that, yes. I am the Lady Professor."

Diana looked surprised.

"Aren't you the Doctor's mum? He said she died."

"I am not the original Lady Professor. I was created by her, though. I am similar to an engram."

Diana thought this over.

"Are you self-aware?"

"Yes, yes I am," the Lady Professor looked quite amused.

"Can you leave?"

She shook her head.

"No, I must remain where I have been placed." The Lady Professor looked at her closely. "Forgive me, but I must ask... during the War, a Time Lord named Rassilon was working on a war project involving a series of clones, and you look very like..." Her voice trailed away uncertainly.

Diana looked surprised.

"If you are asking if I am part of the Masha Collective, yes, yes I am."

"The Masha Collective! The Time Lords never referred to the clones in that fashion... the influence of the Doctor?" The Lady Professor wondered.

"Well, sort of, I guess, but he didn't think of that name. That's what we call ourselves."

A smile unexpectedly lit the Lady Professor's features.

"You gave yourselves... your group... a name?"

"We each chose a name as part of the Revolution, but yes, we also needed a way to be able to reference ourselves as a group." Diana nodded.

"Revolution!" The Lady Professor sounded more surprised than ever.

Diana nodded again. "Uh-huh. To win the ability to choose our own destinies. We didn't want to be weapons any more."

The Lady Professor stared at Diana for a while with her mouth open.

"You're... free?" she finally asked.

Diana nodded.

"Uh-huh. Lady-A found me first and busted me out of my Loop. Then the Doctor got involved, and Susan and Koschei and Guinn and the others. Now we each have our own names and our own lives. We won!"

The Lady Professor's face was lit as if the sun had come up behind her eyes.

"Well done. I commend you. All of you."

Diana reflected for a moment, thinking of the long path that had led here, pursing her lips thoughtfully.

"Is there anything you would like to tell the Doctor?" she said finally. "I could give him a message, or something, if you wanted."

The Lady Professor looked surprised, and touched, by the sentiment. She didn't answer at once. At length, she extended her hand.

"You could give him this, if you like," she said, and Diana took the folded piece of paper from her.

"Okay, I will," she said, as she put the paper in her pocket.

"Just like that? Not even going to read it?" the Lady Professor asked curiously.

Diana shook her head.

"Nuh-uh, it's private."

"He need never know," the Lady Professor tempted.

"No." Diana remained firm. "The Doctor is a friend of mine. I wouldn't treat him like that."

"I see," said the Lady Professor, and looked pleased. "Why are you here?"

"To get a Time Lord thingee."

"Time Lord 'thingee'?" repeated the Lady Professor, looking mystified now.

"Uhhuh. Like, an Omega whatsits. Aislynn and Taydin want to rebuild something called the Schism, and they need it. A hand something-or-other. The Doctor says it's not a real hand, though, so it must be like a glove, I guess."

"So, you followed your friends, having no idea of where you were going, and no clear idea of what you were after…. why?"

"Are you kidding?" Diana said, rolling her eyes. "We're going after an object of vast cosmic power, and objects of vast cosmic power are nothing but trouble. Have you ever met Lady-A? She's like this super-genius mathematician, right? She'll find the object of vast cosmic power, and then go off on some tangent about string theory and galactic harmony and the value of pi, and never even see the twenty-seven mad ax-men who are sneaking up behind her. That's my job." She said, her chest swelling with pride. "To take out all of the mad ax-men, so that Lady-A can enjoy her tangent in peace."

"I… see," the Lady Professor looked highly amused by this description. "What of Scout Commander Taydin?"

"He's good in a fight, I'll give him that," Diana said immediately. "Up until the moment when Lady-A starts in on string theory, and then he's right there with her, trying to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin."

"So, the details don't matter to you at all?"

"I didn't say that." Diana countered. "In fact, I would like details about where we are. About these asteroid things, and the moon that is all bolted together."

"Oh? And your questions are what, precisely? What details are interesting to a woman who keeps one eye out for mad ax-men?" the Lady Professor still sounded highly amused.

Diana pursed her lips, thinking it over.

"Why aren't the Aedok around any more?" she said finally. "What happened to them?"

"Time Lord history says that they vanished," the expression on the Lady Professor's face was hard to read.

"Oh, they did not vanish!" Diana sounded annoyed.

"Are you saying Time Lord history is wrong?" the Lady Professor challenged.

"I am saying entire races don't just vanish!" Diana countered. "I mean, look at this place!"

The Lady Professor looked around at her office in some surprise.

"Not this place!" Scowled Diana. "At the whole thing! These gigantic rings around this great big gas giant, and scores and scores of asteroids that were artificially turned into geodes… who knows how many people it took to build this? Races that build things this big don't just vanish. Do you know what happened to them?"

"Yes, yes, I do, but if I just tell you, you won't learn anything, will you?"

"You're where the Doctor learned that line!" Scolded Diana and now the Lady Professor did smile. She said nothing more and so Diana paced back and forth in the office, thinking.

"What's it all for?" she said finally. "What was it all meant to do?"

"It was meant as a means of exploration. A method of opening doorways or gateways to different worlds, dimensions, alternate timelines…"

Diana turned and looked at her hard.

"Doors swing both ways," she said.

"That," the Lady Professor said, as the office faded out of existence around Diana's ears, "Is a surprisingly insightful comment."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

A Murder on Threadneedle Street

"This is a real place!" Aislynn said, stunned, to no one in particular.

It was cold and foggy day, in the early evening, to judge by the tone of the light. The sun was out and was, presumably, setting; but it was barely visible through the fog, dim and gray and pearly, surrounded by a halo, looking more like the moon than the sun. The streetlights had all been lit, shining golden in their own halos, up and down the street, but even they hardly seemed to cut through the gloom. Nearby one of the lamp posts, a sign hung from a small cross-pole: it proclaimed, "Threadneedle Street" in white hand-painted letters; the cross-sign stated, "Rabbit Row."

Aislynn stepped backwards onto the sidewalk as a horse and carriage clattered down the cobblestones, and looked around properly.

It was a busy place, Threadneedle Street. Aislynn searched for the correct word to describe it. Her vocabulary was severely limited for such locations, although "seedy" seemed to come close. The men and women were dressed in plain clothes, dusty and rumpled. There was a tavern on the corner, cheap and dirty and loud. From it Aislynn could hear music playing a merry tune; the pianist wasn't bad, but the instrument sounded poorly made and one of the C's was flat. Although she could smell fish and hear waves, the water wasn't immediately apparent. A number of men appeared to be sailors, however, and the name of the pub was "The Mangled Mermaid." Had the Time Lady not known better, she would have sworn she had just stepped into Victorian London.

There were several factors that were immediately concerning, besides where she was and how she had arrived at her current location. The Lady Professor had stated that each member of her group was being interviewed separately; either the others weren't finished yet, or they had been sent to different locations upon completion of the interview.

To further complicate matters, it seemed that the transportation methods used to send her here, whatever they had been, had not only deposited her in this new location, but had given her a new wardrobe, suitable for her surroundings… so to speak.

On Gallifrey, Aislynn had been titled nobility. Somehow the transportation method must have sensed this, for she was dressed much differently than the other people in the area. Most of the women wore simple dresses with tattered hems and many layers of scarves and wraps against the chill air. Aislynn, however, was wearing a dress suitable to a noblewoman. It was a striped walking gown made of watered silk, with a bustle and the finest mother-of-pearl buttons. She wore a cameo at her throat, silk gloves on her hands, and found herself carrying a walking cane. In this area of town, she stuck out like a sore thumb.

Unsure what to do, she started to walk.

It didn't take long to determine that she was indeed in a bad area of town. Threadneedle Street was extremely narrow, the buildings so close to each other that they formed a solid wall, punctuated here and there by alleyways that stuck out at various angles. She couldn't imagine how the street had been planned, or if it had been planned at all. At best, Threadneedle street was structured in such a way that it seemed as if the metaphorical thread had a snarl.

The thought had no sooner crossed her mind than something passed in front of her eyes. The solid structure of reality wrenched in a way it ought not to have done, in a slow, cruel twisting motion, leaving her nerves electric and protesting, like listening to fingernails on a blackboard. As a Time Lord, she could sense the Turn of the World, and sense also that it ought not to ever turn in such a fashion.

"Your Ladyship?"

Aislynn staggered. There was a firm supporting hand under her elbow. She thought for a moment it was Taydin, but when her eyes cleared, it was a policeman. He was as scruffy as the portion of town which it was undoubtedly his duty to patrol; his blue uniform was faded and his brass buttons were worn. He was a gigantic fellow, a full six inches taller than Aislynn, who was quite tall herself. His face had that sort of squashed look of a long-time boxer; but there was something honest in his crinkled blue eyes. He reminded her vaguely of Darginian. He had his hat in one hand, but had caught her with the other. His face was concerned as he peered down at her.

She blinked and realized she was still at the corner of the street. On the heels of that came a thought of pure noblesse oblige: the idea that persons of a noble birth mustn't show weakness before commoners. It was followed, immediately afterwards, by an awareness of the sheer ridiculousness of the notion.

Nobility came not from parentage, but from actions, and she knew it well. Hadn't she spent decades among the most wonderful people, without a drop of so-called "blue blood" in their veins? Hadn't her life been saved, repeatedly, by humble humans? Yet, when she was dizzy and mildly disoriented, there it was, the old training from her childhood, creeping sneakily back to her, still seeped into her thought processes somewhere. She felt a hint of shame. So much for being a thoroughly modern Time Lord!

The policeman looked worried, however, and she set aside the pursuit of enlightenment for another day.

"I'm all right," she told him. "It… it was the fog, I think. I've gotten quite turned around."

"Lost, is it, your ladyship?" he clucked respectfully. "I can call you a cab, it'll have you home, safe an' sound, before you can say Bob's-your-uncle…"

Aislynn opened her mouth to reply, and heard a horrifying noise: a high-pitched wailing that made the hairs on the back of her arms stand up on end; a sound so distorted that it took her several moments before she identified it as a scream.

"Criminey!" exclaimed the policeman, and took off running. Aislynn picked up her skirts and followed. She doubted, from the sound of that scream, that she would find anyone alive; and yet it demanded a response. The policeman seemed to know his way around the winding, narrow streets, and she made sure to follow him closely, not caring to get lost in this maze of a place. Nearby, others were running too; they weren't the only ones who had heard the scream.

As she had suspected, the docks were nearby. The river was calm and as iron-gray as the rapidly-darkening sky and the ever-present fog, with ships bobbing in the harbor. There were a lot of large buildings, which Aislynn presumed, from the number of crates, sacks, and wicker baskets stacked high, were warehouses for stored goods. The scene was chaotic when they burst into the area. The warehouses had their large doors open, and goods strewn about; it seemed that many of the men who had been carrying the cargo ashore had dropped it all when they had heard that awful scream.

There was a crowd gathering, standing around in a rough circle, and Aislynn found their silence ominous. There were more arriving every moment and she wondered how they would get through; but the policeman took care of that with a sort of rough and tumble efficiency.

"'Ere now!" He bellowed commandingly at the crowd. "Move along, move along, budge up... " He used his stick to prod and his elbows to push, and although the little circle was tightly packed, it didn't take long for him to clear himself a pathway through him. Aislynn followed quite closely until they had gotten to the center of the ring.

A petrifying sight met her eyes.

They were standing just inside the doors to a warehouse. There were crates stacked to the ceiling, and a number of these had tumbled and burst open, scattering their contents about everywhere. Several, it seemed, had held sugar cubes, already packaged into neat paper packets; their box must have been near the top, for some of the cubes had bounced more than ten feet from their point of origin. Another second wooden crate had held small packets of tea, which were also strewn all about the floor; a third had held a shipment of children's toys, consisting of brightly-colored, hand-sized balls made of a rubbery substance, which had rolled the farthest of all. There were scores of metal jacks to go with the balls, scattered bits of china from a box of smashed teapots, and all sorts of other junk littering the floor from the smashed crates.

It took Aislynn a moment to realize that there was a corpse laying in the middle of this hodgepodge.

She thought at first that it was a mound of sugar cubes; they were about the same color, but for the most part they were too large, the majority of them an inch or more on a side. They were scattered as randomly as everything else on the floor, but in a much tighter area, so that it was possible to make out the vague shapes of a head, arms, legs. There were clothes scattered among the mound of whitish, crystalline cubes; a woman's tattered skirt, a shawl, a cheap gold ring, a pair of shoes, a bag. She caught her breath as she understood what she was looking at.

A moment later she was knocked to her knees, falling unfortunately on the edge of the mass of cubes, crushing them under the weight of her skirts. Several other people were knocked aside as well.

"Noooooooooooooooo!"

He was a giant of a man, dwarfing even the police constable, with untidy black hair, great calloused hands, and clothes as tattered as everyone else's. He flung himself on the pile of cubes with a horrifying wail. They collapsed under his weight, crushed into white dust, and he didn't even notice.

"Myra!" he howled, and Aislynn found her eyes stinging with tears at the raw agony in his voice. "Myra! Myra! Myra! Myra!"

The crowd froze, falling silent at seeing him there, weeping and wailing and carrying on. Those men who were wearing hats began removing them.

After a moment, she swallowed hard and put a hand delicately on his shoulder.

"Come away," she said gently to him. "You have to come away now. You can't help her."

The big man threw himself on her, sobbing wildly, covering her shirt and jacket with the whitish dust of the crushed cubes, and she patted his back awkwardly.

A moment later, she was rescued by the policeman, and a couple of the other warehouse workers who came forward. Another worker who had just arrived, very large, but not so large as the distraught man, began forcing his way through the crowd.

"Bill. Bill!" said the policeman. "Come away now! 'Ere now, where's…" then he spotted the new warehouse worker. His facial structure, and muddy brown eyes, made Aislynn suspect that he was a relative, a brother, perhaps. "Tom, it's Myra…"

"Mary and Joseph." Tom breathed, and then dived right in. "Bill, I'm here, come on now…"

"That's right," said another of the workers as several of them gathered around him. "Come on…" Bill wasn't resisting them, but he was so large that it took all of them to maneuver him away, weeping as if the world had ended.

The policeman helped her back to her feet.

"You'll have to excuse him, your Ladyship," he said, as Aislynn brushed herself off. "'E didn't mean no 'arm. No man 'as ever walked the earth 'as loved a woman more than Bill loved Myra."

"I'm so sorry for his loss," Aislynn started, but then turned as she heard a welcome voice.

"Aislynn!" it called, and she turned, already feeling lighter for his presence.

Taydin was pushing his way through the crowd, looking as handsome as ever. He was wearing a tweed suit and silk cravat, typical of the time period. Beyond him, coming from completely different directions, she could see the others; Diana and Jake were coming from nearby side alleys, while Katie and Owen were approaching each other from different directions down the main cobblestone road.

Diana was dressed as a maid, wearing a plain black bombazine dress with a black chip hat and one of the woolen dark coats that seemed to be so common in the area. Jake and Owen were both dressed in suits of different colors, Jake's black and Owen's gray, but with a white coat over it. Jake's suit was clearly of the make worn by a butler or other similar manservant role, while Owen's coat spoke firmly of his medical background. Katie wore a simple gray cotton day-gown and a nurse's hat with a red cross on it. All of them wore rings on their third fingers: Owen and Katie sported plain gold bands, while Jake and Diana had bands of plain silver. Taydin, who had had no ring before, now sported a gold one with engraving, while Aislynn's ring was set with a beautiful blue gem. Owen and Katie both carried black bags. They hugged hard before running towards the crowd; Jake and Diana simply took each others hands, and sprinted.

"Are you all right?" Taydin looked her over piercingly, only seeming to be satisfied by her nod after he had seen for himself that she was uninjured. He caught his breath at the sight of her, his eyes roaming over her form as if she was the most precious thing he had ever seen.

"Yes, but we have a problem," she said. Taydin caught sight of the corpse and his eyes narrowed.

The policeman was busy trying to disperse the crowd, but Owen and Katie managed to get through anyway.

"What is that?" gasped Katie, looking at the pile of cubes.

"From what I gather, it used to be a young lady named Myra."

"That was a person?" Owen said, staring in disbelief, just as Jake and Diana managed to make their way through the crowd.

The policeman turned to Owen and Katie.

"Doctor an' nurse, is it? It's a grim sight," he told them. "Can you take a look…?" He indicated the body.

Owen nodded, stepping forwards and kneeling down, with Katie at his elbow. From their motions it was clear that they had worked together for many years.

Jake looked grim, saying nothing. Diana stooped, idly picking up one of the fallen rubber balls, and held it as she looked down at the floor, spinning it around in her fingers.

"That's a mess," she said.

"You have a gift for understatement as always." Aislynn snarked.

Katie and Owen were both kneeling down.

"What could do this to a person…?" Katie was just asking, but Owen shook his head. "We can't tell you anything here," he said to the policeman. "We need to conduct a proper examination with more equipment that we have on us."

The policeman nodded, turning to Aislynn and Taydin.

"You an' your servants'll need to clear out too, begging your pardon, your Ladyship, but it's improper for people to look at poor Myra this way…" The crowd was dispersing reluctantly, whispering among themselves.

"Can I help any further?" Owen asked.

"I think we'll need plenty of help later," the Officer murmured, scribbling hastily on a piece of paper and handing it to Owen. "Myra'll be taken to the Morgue on Shanks Avenue, here's the address. Coroner's name is Dr. Hooper, give 'em this note, they'll let you in. Best you go on for now, though."

"You are quite right, of course," she agreed. "I expect you have things well in hand here. We'll be on our way at once."

The policeman tipped his hat to them, and they walked away in silence, leaving him behind.

"What happened?" Taydin said urgently to Aislynn when they had gotten far enough away, but Diana shook her head.

"Guys, this is totally not the place to do this," she said to them. "We need to find a place, sit down, and have a pow-wow… preferably some place that is inside."

"Yes, I can see that," Owen agreed, although he sounded somewhat reluctant.

"Do we have anyplace to go?" asked Katie. "Is there a… hotel or something?" She looked very nervously at the Mangled Mermaid, which was just visible on the far corner. Aislynn was vaguely annoyed to see that she had come in a big circle somehow.

"Oh, please let's not go to the Mangled Mermaid." She shuddered at the thought. "If I have to listen to that dreadful, out-of-tune piano I'll end up by flinging myself from the balcony."

"I think we actually do have some place to go." Taydin looked very amused as he pulled a card from his pocket and handed to Aislynn, who read it with raised eyebrows.

"Where did you get this?"

"My new outfit has pockets," said Taydin with a shrug. "This was in one of them."

"Baker Street?" she said, handing the card off to Jake. "Do you have any idea of where Baker Street is?"

Jake looked at Taydin after looking at the card.

"This does not seriously say 221B Baker Street," he said.

"It seriously says 221B Baker Street," confirmed Taydin.

Aislynn frowned, seeing Jake, Owen, Katie, and Taydin look at each other. She looked at Diana but Diana looked bemused.

"I don't understand the significance of the location," she told Taydin.

Taydin stepped out into the street, and held up a hand. The carriage that had been rumbling by came to a stop.

"Where to, Guv'ner?" The driver was a thin, bearded man, and tipped his hat politely at them.

"221B, Baker Street," replied Taydin, and they all climbed inside.

"Now, what is the significance of Baker Street?" asked Aislynn once the carriage was rattling down the road. She brushed at her clothes, which still felt dusty.

"It's a literary reference," explained Taydin.

"There were a series of stories, about a famous detective named Sherlock Holmes," explained Jake. "They were published as fiction, but there was actually a historical figure that matched the description of the character. He would solve murder mysteries. "

"Like this!" Diana said brightly. "Had the Doctor ever heard of this Holmes guy?"

"Oh yes, loves to quote him too." Jake said with a laugh.

"Well we've certainly got a mystery," added Katie. "Like… what could do that to a human body?"

"Yeah," Diana agreed, putting the ball away in one pocket, and from the other drawing forth a cube. "What are these things anyway?"

"Diana!" Scolded Katie, the moment she saw it.

"What?" Diana replied. "Do you know what did this? Because I don't. What if it is contagious or we need to analyze it?"

"What if the Time Lords know what it is?" Katie turned to Aislynn and Taydin inquiringly.

"Sure, I'll bite," Diana said. "Do you know what this is? Or were you just doing the eyebrow thing to fake me out?"

Aislynn had been reaching out to take the cube and now she frowned.

"Eyebrow thing?" she said bemusedly.

"Yes: every time something has you stumped, you're all like…" Diana made such an exaggerated face, with her eyebrows drawn together so ferociously, that both Owen and Taydin laughed out loud. Jake tousled her hair and Katie smiled, but put her hand over her mouth. Aislynn looked scandalized.

"My eyebrows don't look like that!" she protested.

"They actually do," Taydin countered, and took the cube from Diana. He looked sad as he pointed his sonic at it. Aislynn copied the movement with her tuning sonic.

"Well?" prompted Owen after a moment of Time Lord frowns and sonic screwdriver noises.

"Crystallized, of course, but that is obvious," Taydin said. "All of the elements of the human body are here… salts… minerals?"

"What about water?" Jake prompted.

"Broken down into its component elements of hydrogen and oxygen, then merged to other elements prior to crystallization, I believe," mused Aislynn, her eyebrows drawing together almost exactly as Diana had portrayed them a moment ago.

"Not all of the elements in the human body are typically subject to crystallization." Katie scowled.

"Quite correct," agreed Aislynn, turning the cube around in her fingers thoughtfully.

"Any idea what did this?" Jake prompted.

Taydin and Aislynn looked at each other significantly, but shook their heads.

"Foolish to speculate without data," Aislynn mused.

"Which means you have a suspect, but don't want to say yet?" Diana scowled.

"Which means it is foolish to speculate without further data," Aislynn scolded.

"Well, what data do we have?" prompted Katie.

"To start at the beginning," said Jake, "I think we should talk about our interviews with the Lady Professor. She had some… very interesting things to say."

"And you need to see this!" Katie added, reaching in her pocket.

"I found out a bit about how this all works…" Owen started.

Taydin held up a hand.

"I agree, we need to compare stories," he said. "But while we are travelling in the carriage isn't the time."

"Particularly since we seem to have arrived," added Aislynn, just as the carriage came to a halt, exactly in front of 221B Baker Street.


End file.
